^■^ 









■ I " 



SHhr 



■ 



'V't'i' 



T 



tf.\ .ji 




H 

§■ 






■ 



^H ■ ■ 



■ 



1 ^H 



1 1 1 



1 1 



mm- 



^M Ho 



■ 






r.,.. 



■ 



■ ,i 



M 



wr..' 




III EH 



■WSMHh 




Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



DOWN THE ISLANDS 



A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES 



WILLIAM AGNEW PATON 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY 
M. J. BURNS 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1887 



Copyright, 1S87, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



& 
& 



frb 



TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. 




A hindu cooly belle (see page 177). 



NOTE. 

SOME of the chapters contained in the first part of this 
volume originally appeared, in a more condensed 
form, in the columns of The Evening Post. To 
them I have added much new and, I hope, interesting mat- 
ter. It is within bounds to say that more than half of the 
contents of Down the Islands is now to be published for 
the first time. 

I avail myself of this opportunity to thank Hon. Perry 
Belmont, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
XLVth Congress ; Nevile Lubbock, Esquire, British West 
Indian Commissioner ; E. T. Grannum, Esquire, Member 
of the Barbados House of Assembly ; J. R. McLeod, Es- 
quire, of Georgetown, Demerara, for their courtesy in pro- 
curing for me valuable books and documents containing of- 
ficial information concerning the Windward Islands, of which 
I have made use in writing this book. 

W. A. P. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 3 

CHAPTER I. 

A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES. 

A Sudden Start on a Sea Journey. — Incidents of the Voyage. — From January to 
June, Overcoats to Seersuckers, in Three Days.— The Rising of the Southern 
Cross. — The Course to the Caribbees. — Historical Notes. — A Landfall 7 

CHAPTER II. 

AN AFTERNOON ON DECK. 

The Northern Caribbees. — Anguilla. — Its "Wild Irish" Settlers and Present In- 
habitants. — St. Martin, a Franco-Dutch Island. — St. Bartholomew. — Saba, a 
Crater Shipyard.— St. Eustatius. — Arrival at St. Christopher 22 

CHAPTER III. 

ST. CHRISTOPHER. 

St. Kitt's Liamuiga, the Fertile. — Historical Notes.— Governors Warner and 
D'Esnambuc. — English and French Settlement of St. Christopher. — Final 
Bauishmeut of the French. — Sunrise in Basseterre Roadstead. — The Fleet 
of Bumboats. — Attacked by Fruit-sellers and Washerwomen. — Effecting a 
Landing ■> . ? 33 



Vl CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 

PAGE 

Basseterre, the Capital of St. Kitt's. — Slavery and Windmills. — Free Labor and 
Steam-power. — A Magnificent Landscape. — Distant Views. — The Barber of 
Basseterre. — A Wonderful Garden. — A Host of New-found Friends. — The 
Voyage to Antigua 44 

CHAPTER V. 

ANTIGUA. 

A Tropical Sunrise. — Antigua. — The Harbor of St. John's. — General Description 
of the Island. — A Derelict Bark. — Scenes on Landing. — A View from an Old 
Church-yard. — Lizards Great and Small. — West Indian Entertainers. — A 
Morning Drive 56 

CHAPTER VI. 

A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 

West Indian Hospitality. — A Sugar Plantation. — Sugar-making. — An Occult 
Luncheon. — Turtle, and again Turtle. — The Public Library. — Historical 
Notes. — Under Way for Islands farther South 68 

CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 

A Sudden Sunset. — A Mysterious Evening.— Sleeping on Deck. — The Ladies' 
Reservation. — The Doctor's Camping-ground. — Morning Ritual. — Fruit and 
Salt-water Baths. — Guadeloupe. — The Saints. — Marie Galante. — Dominica... 80 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SABBATH ISLAND. 

Dominica. — Mount Diablotin. — The Lay of the Land. — The Forests and Mountains. 
— Its unexplored Interior. — Dr. Imray's Description of its Soil and " Pecu- 
liarities." — Its Crops and Commerce. — The Land of Caribs. — Roseau 88 



CONTEXTS. vu 

CHAPTER IX. 

MAD ANINA— MARTINIQUE. 

PAGE 

A Silver Streak. — Shakespeare's Knowledge concerning the New World and the 
Cannibals. —Martinique, its Physical Geography, Climate, and Soil. — St. 
Pierre, Martinique, Colored Folks. — The Costumes, Jewellery, and Appear- 
ance of the Franco-Africaines 100 

CHAPTER X. 

A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 

"Not our Funeral." — A Merry Party. — Over the Hills and Far Away. — The Gen- 
darmerie. — The Valley of the Roxelane. — The High Woods. — Martinique 
Scenery. — A Way-side Luncheon. — Agouti. — A Pig's Nurse. — A Chorus of 
Bells.— Return to the Ship 112 

CHAPTER XI. 

ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE. 

A Visit to the American Consul. — Hotel Micas. — The Carriage which never "Came 
to Arrive." — Strolls about Town — Des MoucJies du Vent. — A Religious Parade. 
— An Ancient Muldtresse. — A Street Fountain.— Birthplace of Empress Jo- 
sephine. — H. M. S. Diamond Rock. . , 125 

CHAPTER XII. 

ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 

Carlisle Bay. — A Fleet of Merchantmen. — What was not to be Seen by the Dawn's 
early Light. — Where are the Yankee Ships and their Yankee Crews ? — One 
Vast Sugar-estate. — An International Episode. — Barbadian Loyalty to Britain. 
— Aunt Polly. — Swizzles and Swizzle-sticks 135 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 

PAGE 

A Favored People. — Statistics of Population. — Sugar, Molasses, Rum. — Street 
Scenes in Bridgetown. — The Ice Establishment. — War News. — New Old 
Friends. — Barbadian Sociability. — A Well-ordered Hostelry . 148 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE TIP-END OF A CONTLNENT. 

Bound for South America.— Pepper-pot. — An Apothecary's Prescription. — Suri- 
nam. — Equatorial Holland. — Dikes and Windmills. — Statistical Gleanings. — 
An American Market Building. — The Shipping Laws of 1798 162 

CHAPTER XV. 

DEMERARA. 

Georgetown. — Its Hindu Citizens. — The Tower Hotel. — A Meteorological Digres- 
sion. — A Hindu Belle. — Her Face and her Fortune. — A Street Idyl. — Victoria 
Regia 173 

CHAPTER XVI. 

ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 

The North Coast.— The Dragon's Mouths.— Gulf of Paria.— Port of Spain.— The 
Street-cleaning Department. — A Chapter of Horrors. — The Environs of Port 
of Spain 183 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A HINDU TOWN. 

San Fernando. — A Cooly Town. — The Contract-labor System. — A Silver-smith. — 
Bangle-making. — A Cooly Doctor-shop. — The Market-place. — Curry in all 
Shapes 194 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACES. 

PAGE 

Regrets at Leaving San Fernando. — The Future of the Cooly and Negro Races. — 
The Heirs of the Caribbees. — The Example of Hayti. — Are the Colored Races 
to Retrograde in their Civilization ? — Wanted, a Constable 205 

CHAPTER XIX. 

GRENADA. 

Discovery of Grenada and Tobago. — Description of the Former. — St. George's 
Harbor. — A Romantic Town. — The "Yaws." — A Ride Inland. — Beasts of 
Burden. — Cocoa and Cocoa-planting. — Bread-fruit 222 

CHAPTER XX. 

DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 

A Wonderful Procession. — A Curious Orchestra of Silent Reeds. — "Gib me six- 
pence, an I tell you." — Morne des Sauteurs. — Historical Notes. — French Con- 
quest of Grenada. — Its Capture by the English.— A Plague of Ants 234 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ST. LUCIA. 

Its Settlement. — Carib Wars. — Struggle between English and French for its Pos- 
session. — The Gibraltar of the West Indies. — Warfare for a Century and a 
Half. — Rodney. — Sir John Moore. — Final Cession of the Island to Great 
Britain 246 

CHAPTER XXII. 

ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 

Geography of St. Lucia. — Port Castries. — Souf riere Bay and Town. — Diving 
Darkies. — Electioneering. — Creole Ponies. — The Sulphur Mountain. — A Trip 
along the Shore. — The Pitons. 258 



x CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

MONTSERRAT. 

PAGE 

To Montserrat via Sundry other Islands — Irish Darkies. — General Description. 
— Plymouth. — The Swarm of Beggars. — "Glad I'se alibe, sah. " — A Heartless 
Flirtation. — The Author's Experience with an Unknown Fruit 270 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

NEVIS. 

St. Mary-the-Round. — Nevis. — Its Geography and General Appearance. — Charles- 
town, its Capital. — Its Hot Springs. — An Ancient Hotel and Ancient Guard- 
ian. — Lord Nelson's Marriage in Nevis. — Alexander Hamilton 281 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 

Aleck and Anthony, the Crew of the Captain's Gig. — How Aleck "loss his 
mudder." — From Basseterre to Sandy Point. — A Historic Coach. — View from 
North End of St. Kitt's.— Home Again 293 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 



A Hindu Coolt Belle, 

Bum-boats at Basseterre, St. Kitt's, . 

An Avenue of Cocoa-palms, 

Martinique Scenery, 

A French Creole, 

A Martinique Belle, 

Street Fountain in St. Pierre, 

Birthplace of the Empress Josephine, 

Flying-fish Fleet off Barbados, 

Main Street of Bridgetown, Barbados, 

A Cooly Woman, . 

Hindu Doctor and Wife, 

The Pitons of St. Lucia, 

"Penny fo' de Baby, please," 

Nevis, 



Frontispiece. 

FACING PAGE 

. 39 



. 102 

. 107 

. 110 

. 129 

. 132 

. 139 

. 148 

. 180 

. 200 

. 264 

. 273 

, 281 



ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. 





PAGE 


Initial, ...•••• 


S 


Getting his Bearings, ..... 


11 


Watching for the Southern Cross, . 


. 12 


Map op Martin Behaim— 1492, .... 


. 1»> 


Initial, ....... 


oo 


A Caribbean Bo-peep, ..... 


. 24 


Statia, ....... 


. 30 


Tailpiece, ....... 


• 32 


Street Scenes, ...... 


. 41 


The Beach at Basseterre, .... 


. 44 


An Old Gateway, ...... 


. 47 


A Relic of the Good Old Times, 


. 49 


Old Well — St. Kitt's ..... 


. 51 


Initial, ....... 


. 56 


Fruit-seller — Antigua, ..... 


. 60 


Common Garden-lizard, ..... 


. 64 


The Salmagundian making ready to Sketch, 


. 67 


Initial, . . ..... 


. 68 


Tailpiece, ....... 


. 79 


Initial, ....... 


. 100 


The Market-place, St. Pierre . 


. 114 


Initial, ....... 


. 135 


Nelson Monument— Bridgetown, 


. 156 


Park in Barbados, ..... 


. 161 


Initial, ....... 


. 162 


A Medical Recipe, ..... 


. 165 


Native Indian of British Guiana, . . 


. 169 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XI] i 





PAGE 


Headpiece, ......... 


. 173 


Leaves of "Victoria Regia," ..... 


. 181 


Tailpiece, ' . . ...... 


. 182 


Hindu Barber, .... ... 


. 183 


View of Port of Spain, ...... 


. 186 


Road in Front of Governor's Palace, 


. 191 


Cooly Field-hand, . , 


. 195 


A New World Hindu, ...... 


. 197 


Initial, ........ 


. 205 


Hindu Coolies cutting Cane, ..... 


. 207 


The Salmagundian gets a " Tip," .... 


. 222 


Fort St. George, Grenada, ..... 


. 225 


Tailpiece, ........ 


. 233 


A Mount, . . ... 


. 234 


Molasses, . . . . . . 


. 239 


Tailpiece, ........ 


. 245 


Return from Soufriere, ..... 


. 266 


A Planter's House, ...... 


. 268 


Initial, ... 


. 270 


Scramble for a Copper, ...... 


. 275 


The Seller of Cashews, ..... 


. 276 


A Pirogue, . . . 


. 280 


Sail Rock, ........ 


. 281 


Redonda, 


. 282 


Church where Nelson is alleged to have been married, 


. 289 


Tailpiece, ........ 


. 301 



DOWN THE ISLANDS 



Somfcrero A -*\ 

'JfZ&LSiguiilUi/ 

W~ Bartholomew 
Sk Christophers 






CAR IB BEE 



Guadalou' 



UecuPitro 

5&/J XMaru, 
The Safnts^^i$a2a7rfa 

Dominic* 



Diamond RocK*^*;- 1 



^. Lucia 

- v . *"« Barbados 
S VincentMj) [i 

Gren a di nine's 

Carrxncc'' 



OR 



Grenada 



WINDWARD 



b George- 



Tobago 



ISLANDS 




DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



INTRODUCTION 



SAT down to my breakfast on the morning of the 
second day of April, 188-, with no more notion 
that I should find myself at dinner-time that day 
at sea, bound on a voyage the story of which I 
now propose to write, than I have, seeing that I am 
come in safety home again, of setting out before to- 
morrow to seek my fortune in the uttermost part 
of the mysterious country known as the Back of 
Beyond. On the morning in question, having slept 
in, as my Scotch forebears would put it, I was not 
surprised, on entering the dining-room, to discover 
that the other members of my family had already 
gone their several ways into the work-a-day world ; 
all except my father, who was standing by the win- 
dow, whence, from time to time, he cast weather- 
wise glances aloft, blinking and frowning at as angry a sky as had 
ever scowled back at him on any morning all winter long between 
Thanksgiving and the dreary April day whereof I am writing. 

According to calendars and date-lines of daily newspapers the 
second month of spring was two days old ; the weather, to the con- 
trary, bore testimony of midwinter — midwinter at its worst — with 
never a suggestion of springtide nor prophecy of summer ; if summer 
there was ever again to be. The temperature was of January. A 




4 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

bitter wind chased dark masses of clouds relentlessly before it ; 
occasional flurries of snow, mingled with dust set free by March 
thaws and subsequent dry spells, choked and blinded the few, the 
very few, venturesome folk who hurried along the almost deserted 
thoroughfares of New York City. Rheumatism and lumbago claimed 
their victims at the street-corners; coughs and colds lurked privily, lying 
wait at every open door and window. Heaped in the gutters and piled 
high within the iron railings in front of the houses there yet remained 
unmelted patches and remnants of grimy snow, the cast-off rags and 
tatters of winter. Strange noises were to be heard overhead, where 
revolving chimney-tops groaned and grumbled as they turned every 
which way on stiffened joints ; shutters moaned on rusty hinges ; win- 
dow-blinds banging away like batteries of artillery, threatened to fly 
from their fastenings to dash themselves into kindling on the icy 
pavements below. 

There was a cheerful fire of soft coal burning in the dining-room 
grate. As I settled myself at table my father left his place at the 
window, and, approaching the fireplace, laid a fair, round hickory-stick 
on the glowing embers, where it presently began to sing as merrily as 
the Perrybingle family tea-kettle. "When the flames had licked the 
wood all over, with much hissing and smacking of lips they proceeded 
leisurely to devour the fragrant morsel, roaring up the chimney mean- 
while in brave defiance of the tempest as it whistled the sparks upward 
to lead them a merry dance out into the cold and gloom of winter. 
Once more stationing himself at his point of observation my father re- 
marked, in the confident tone of a man who had weighed well his words: 

" The Doctor will catch it this afternoon when he gets outside of 
Sandy Hook ! » 

Hardly were the words spoken when an unusually violent gust, the 
cause of renewed groanings and sounds of woe among the chimney- 
tops, swooping down from the roofs of the dwellings to windward of 
our home dashed like invisible driving spray against the window-panes. 
The blast roared lustily, but, failing to frighten the observer from his 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

coign of vantage or to enter the cosey room by main force, in rage of 
disappointment the southeaster slammed my father's iron shutters in 
his face and so put an end to his meteorological observations, for that 
morning at least. The good man turned from the darkened window 
and left the room, adding, as he bade me good-morning : 

" What a day to go to sea ! " 

What a day, indeed ! What a day to go anywhere under the sky ; 
worst of all, to go to sea. It was bad enough to be compelled to stir 
out-of-doors on such a day, or, for that matter even, to move about 
in-doors beyond the comfortable influence of a blazing hearth. 

Without pretending to be weatherwise, although I can make good 
my claim to be considered the son of a weather-prophet of acknowl- 
edged accuracy in making predictions, by aid of a meteorological 
shoulder and well-tested weather-glass, I could see with half an eye 
that the Doctor would inevitably " catch it," whatever it was or from 
whichever way it blew, long before he came half-way to Sandy Hook, 
or by whatever other course he might make bold to venture seaward 
that April day. 

In due time, having satisfied my appetite, leisurely looking over the 
morning papers meanwhile, I rose from the breakfast-table, entertain- 
ing even at that late hour, no more idea of going to sea than I have, 
as I sit writing these words, of taking my departure forthwith, ere 
this ink be dry, to the land which lies east of the moon and west of 
the sun, indeed, I may say — and with no intent to exaggerate — to the 
Cannibal Islands themselves. 

Shortly before noon the Doctor, who had prescribed for himself 
that most agreeable of all remedies, to wit, rest and a sea-voyage, 
whose preparations to follow his own advice, " to take what he would 
give," I was watching with envious interest, suddenly, without pausing 
in the operation of packing his trunk, startled me by asking the ques- 
tion : 

" How would you like to go to the Caribbean Islands % " 

The inquiry smacked of suggestion and contained a pleasant flavor 



6 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

of invitation. What wonder, then, that I eagerly confessed my will- 
ingness, not to say longing, to set out at once, not only to the archipel- 
ago in question, but to any other part of the navigable sea or habitable 
land to which he might be good enough to ask me to bear him company. 

Nevertheless, as I made my confession it did not enter my brain to 
conceive that there was any probability of my going with him on a trip 
for which he had nearly completed all his preparations and I had made 
no preparation at all. In a word, I had as soon thought of setting out 
with him then and there as he of leaving me in charge of his patients 
during his proposed absence. 

It is the unexpected that happens. 

So it fell out that I sat down to dinner at four — bells, that day, hav- 
ing the Doctor for my vis-a-vis at the Captain's table in the cabin of 
the steamship Barracouta, bound, not, indeed, to the Back of Beyond 
but, in very truth, to the Cannibal Islands — the original and, mark you ! 
the first so-called Cannibal Islands which, as everybody ought to know, 
were discovered in the year 1493 by no less famous a navigator than 
Christoval Colon himself. 

It may well be imagined, I did not make haste slowly in my efforts 
to catch the steamer, which was to sail that day promptly at 2 p.m. In- 
deed ! so great was my hurry and excitement that I was half-way to 
Sandy Hook before I began to realize how I had set out on a voyage 
which, as it turned out, was to last five weeks to a day. In hot haste, 
therefore, I took my departure from home and from among my people, 
not in the manner of a man who was minded to go a-pleasuring, but 
after the fashion of one who meditates a flight into foreign parts con- 
veniently beyond the ken of extradition treaties. 



CHAPTER I. 



A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES. 



A Sudden Start on a Sea Journey — Incidents of the Voyage — From January to June, 
Overcoats to Seersuckers, in Three Days— The Rising of the Southern Cross — The 
Course to the Caribbees — Historical Notes — A Landfall. 

A nipping southeaster hurtled over the East River, as the Barracouta 
swung out of her dock at the foot of Market Street, and gradually 
headed oceanward. The gale driving counter to the ebbing tide 
caught the crests of the waves, -curled them backward, whipping them 
into foam and icy spray ; it whistled through the rigging of the ships, 
swept across the cables of the great bridge, until they droned like the 
chords of a titanic ^Eolian harp. The clouds fled away headlong be- 
fore the pitiless storm, that whisked the steam from the vent of the 
Barracouta's whistle, which gave a prolonged shriek as the steamer 
gathered headway. A parting salute was fired, and the squall 
snatched the smoke from the cannon's mouth, tearing it into tatters 
and whirling it out of sight before the report of the discharge had 
startled the echoes of Washington Heights. 

The air became colder and colder as the steamer kept steadfastly 
on her way down the harbor, the storm increased in violence 
until it was impossible to escape from its onset in the shelter of any 
nook or corner on deck. The captain and pilot paced to and fro on 
the bridge, stamping their feet, beating their hands, blinking and wink- 
ing ahead into the eye of the wind, from time to time turning their 
backs to the gale to catch breath as they rubbed their noses, already 
as red as the port side-light of the steamer. The man at the steering 



8 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

gear, standing exposed to the weather forward of the deck-house, looked 
pinched and utterly woe-begone, clinging desperately as if frozen 
fast to the spokes of the wheel which, in its oscillations, seemed to 
move, not to be moved or controlled by, him. On deck a few pas- 
sengers stuck it out obstinately, cowering in the lee of the smoke-stack. 
Two able-bodied sea travellers, the Doctor and the companion of his 
travels, tramped valiantly up and down, taking exercise for to-morrow 
and trying their sea-legs. 

As the steamer passed through the Narrows, Staten Island and the 
Bay llidge shore showed chill and desolate, all the trees gaunt and 
leafless, the meadows sere and frost-bound ; moreover, there was a 
broad fringe of ice all round the sea-wall of Fort Lafayette. On 
Coney Island and all along the New Jersey strand great waves flung 
themselves high up on the beach, and long before the Barracouta passed 
the Hook great billows charged in from the warring sea to meet her. 
Out on the open it was dreary and bitterly cold. I thought of the 
store of summer clothing in my trunks below, and shivered miserably, 
although crowded close to the warm side of the smoke-stack. Three 
days later the mere mention or remembrance of winter wraps brought 
the perspiration to my brow as I sat in the shade of the deck-awning. 

Night came on, and a dirty night it proved to be, but the ship 
struggled bravely summerward, leaving winter, knot by knot, astern. 
Far away beneath the Southern Cross lay our desired haven, beyond 
the blue waters where it is always spring or summer, where there is 
no ice nor snow, chill winds nor frosty weather. 

Shortly before dark we heard a great alarum high overhead, the 
" honking " of a flock of wild geese winging their way to the ice-bound 
North from which we were hastening. The apparition of the steamer 
with its long plume of inky smoke startled them ; for a few moments 
the long line of their flight was broken — their rank, falling into con- 
fusion, swerved from its direct course like a file of soldiers thrown 
out of step. Then the swiftest and, presumably, the wisest, members 
of the company went quickly to the front, with loud trumpeting, to 



A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES. 9 

marshal and re-form the column. Away it sped, lessening to view, 
until it appeared like a mysterious flying serpent, such as ancient 
mariners are said often to have seen hovering in mid-air ; it dwindled 
in the distance, for a moment floated over the horizon like a film of 
cloud ; then the jaws of darkness devoured it up. 

At dark Long Branch was on our starboard quarter, distant eight 
or ten miles in the west. At bedtime Barnegat Light, just abeam, 
winked slyly at us, as if up to our little game (and entirely approving 
of it, by the way) of sailing away in quest of summer long before the 
time of the singing of birds had come to our Northern homes. 

The next morning we were crossing the river in the ocean, as 
Maury calls the Gulf Stream in his delightful book (" The Physical 
Geography of the Sea "), a book that deserves to be well-thumbed by 
all sea-going people, whether they be shipped as sailor-men before, or 
passengers behind the mast. The air was mild and spring-like, the 
sky, however, still threatened storm ; frequent rain-squalls drove us to 
seek shelter, but not for long at a time, in the deck-cabin, or those 
who found favor in the sight of our captain, into his snug official 
quarters under the pilot-bridge. 

All day the gulls that had followed us throughout the previous 
night hovered in our wake, uttering shrill, complaining cries. These 
restless beings bore us company until we came to quieter waters, 
where we found warmer weather and fairer skies ; then, like the evil 
voices that haunted Bunyan's Pilgrim, they went back and came no 
farther. "When the stormy birds forsook us we were taken under the 
protection of other seafowl, called by sailors " bo'suns," for the reason 
their long tail-feathers bear a fancied resemblance to marlin-spikes. 
Landsmen know these as man-o'-war birds, of all winged creatures 
the most graceful, flying so easily, wafted with so little effort from 
wave to cloud that one is never tired of watching them, forever cir- 
cling and poising in mid-air. These attendant spirits accompanied us 
for days, until we reached the Caribbean Islands, and thence, when 
we were northward bound, escorted us back again to that place be- 



10 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

tween the sea and sky where they had first taken us under their care 
and keeping. 

On the second day of the voyage spring came joyously to meet us, 
bringing sunshine and warm weather. We threw aside our wraps, 
and turned down the collars of our overcoats, which we had worn con- 
stantly since leaving home. Later in the morning we discarded top- 
coats and reefers altogether; presently there was no need to pace the 
decks to keep ourselves warm. By mid-day, stowed away in snug 
places on the deck or lounging comfortably in easy-chairs, talking or 
reading, smoking, dozing, each according to his humor, we all rejoiced 
greatly in the sunshine. 

The delightful change in the weather had a pleasant effect upon 
the spirits of the ship's company ; the passengers, gradually yielding to 
its genial influence, became more and more affable, in a surprisingly 
short time made themselves at home, striking up acquaintance with, 
and confiding in one another, in the manner of jovial sea-going folk. 
First, it was unanimously agreed that the weather was all that could 
be desired or we deserved. Second, that the Barracouta was a sea- 
worthy and comfortable vessel. A further meeting of minds devel- 
oped the fact that the companionship of our captain was agreeable to 
all on board. His cheery presence was as welcome as the flowers in 
May. Before many days, indeed from that day forth, we looked upon 
him as the owner of the steam-yacht Barracouta, on which we were 
cruising, by invitation of our friend, at his sole expense (a mere trifle 
to him, by the way, of three or four hundred dollars per diem), having 
nothing to do but enjoy ourselves and partake of the kindly hospital- 
ity of our host. 

On the third day out from JSTew York we donned summer apparel, 
and were glad of the shade of an awning stretched over the deck. 
The thermometer had mounted from the thirties into the seventies. 
In seventy-two hours we had given winter the slip, leaving leaden 
skies and howling gales behind us, to sail under a cloudless heaven 
over a sea glistening in the sunlight of midsummer. It was almost 



A VOYAGE TO THE UABIBBEES. 



11 



impossible to realize that in so short a time we had been transported 
from January to June. The magic of the change may thus be formu- 
lated : 

Day before yesterday, late in the evening, we bade good-by to 

winter ; yesterday morn- 
ing we fell in with early 
spring; in the afternoon 
ethereal mildness itself ex- 
tended to us a genial greet- 
ing, and to-day we drank 
in, or, like Joey Ladle, took 
in through the pores, all 
the delights of one of the 
rarest days of a New Eng- 




land June. Had Mark Twain's 
collector-of-weathers been of 
our company, within three days 
of setting sail from the foot of 
Market Street, New York, he might have 
added to his meteorological museum speci- 
mens of every known variety of climate to 

be found in the latitude and longitude of the Island of Manhattan 
between Christmas and Fourth of July. 

When we had left Sandy Hook seven or eight hundred miles be- 
hind us, patches of bright-yellow gulf-weed floating on the ocean bore 
witness that we had reached the outlying regions of the Sargasso Sea. 



12 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



Schools of dolphins numbering many scores played about the ship ; 
innumerable flying-fish, frightened at our sudden approach, leaped 
unexpectedly from the sea, to scatter in all directions, like bevies of 
quail flushed by an over-eager dog. We enjoyed from this time on a 
climate that varied but little in temperature, being always, day and 
night, delicious and mild. In the evenings glorious sunsets promised 
well for the morrow, and at night the stars shone with unusual lustre. 
Night by night, as we neared the tropics, we watched to see the 




Southern Cross rise above the horizon ahead of us. Some of the 
ship's company really seemed to yearn for it with sentimental antici- 
pations of delight, having prepared themselves by meditation (and 
fasting, during rough w r eather) to gaze upon the mysterious symbol in 
solemn wonderment or with ecstatic admiration as the occasion might 
seem to demand. At last, one glorious evening, we were summoned 
from the dinner-table out on to the deck, into the pale light of the 
stars, there to behold the much-talked of constellation, some of us 
for the first time in our lives. "When it was pointed out to us as we 
stood in the moonlight, leaning over the taffrail, there was a short but 



A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES. 13 

embarrassing silence, which was shattered (broken would be altogether 
too mild a term) almost immediately by somebody, I think it was one 
of the ladies, who remarked, in an injured tone : 

" I don't think that's much ! " 
Alas ! she voiced the sentiment of a majority of her fellow-pas- 
sengers. 

It required a determined effort of the imagination to make out the 
cruciform outline of the Southern Cross, so imperfectly indicated as it 
is when seen north of the equator, by four irregularly placed stars — 
heavenly bodies that certainly did not, on that evening at least, shine 
with the rare effulgence we had been led to expect they would shed. 
Therefore we hastily concluded we had been imposed upon, and were 
wroth, as Naaman the Syrian was wroth when bidden by the master 
of Gehazi — 

" Go and wash in Jordan seven times." 

" Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all 
the waters of Israel ? " 

Were not Pleiades and Orion more glorious than the constellation 
we had sailed so far to see ? 

In honest truth, we had not sailed far, nor even turned aside from 
our course, but being, man and woman-like, unreasonable in our dis- 
appointment, we would have chimed in with Sidney Smith's irreverent 
friend who had been heard on occasion to speak " disrespectfully of 
the equator " itself, had he been of our company and seen fit to ex- 
press utter disapprobation with the appearance of the Southern Cross. 
We watched it evening after evening and through the silent watches 
of the night ; as we approached the equator it rose higher and higher 
above the horizon, brightened and glowed in greater glory, but we 
never entirely recovered from the rude shock to our sensibilities occa- 
sioned by our disappointment over its entirely unsatisfactory first reve- 
lation. 

By the time I had been four or five days at sea I ceased to won- 
der at the breathless haste of my departure from my father's house, 



14 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

and began to have some idea of where I was going ; for I confess, when 
I set out on the voyage, 1 was wof ully ignorant of everything concern- 
ing the Caribbean Islands, almost of their whereabouts. And I here 
venture to remark — not ill-humoredly nor in extenuation of my own 
lack of knowledge concerning the geography of these islands that dot 
the chart of the Caribbean Sea like stepping-stones between the shores 
of ]STorth and South America — it is an undoubted fact, a fact to be 
marvelled at, that nine out of ten of my countrymen are no better in- 
formed on the subject than was I when I set sail for the Windward 
Islands. I am convinced this is true, for, on my return home, I had 
what journalists call " a beat " on nearly all my acquaintances, to whom 
I had much that was strange and wonderful to tell concerning my 
travels. I made the pleasing discovery that whatever I had to say 
about the foreign parts I had visited was good fresh news to such of 
my friends and neighbors as were compelled, for the sake of politeness 
or the kindly interest they take in whatever concerns me, to hear me 
patiently, remaining dumb before me, until I had sailed my voyage to 
the Caribbees over again. 

A mono- other things I discovered how, before the time of Colum- 
bus, some geographers imagined the existence of a continent lying to 
the west of the Azores, basing their statements concerning its location 
and extent on the stories told by adventurous mariners who had 
journeyed far into the terror-inspiring expanse of the Western Ocean. 
By giving heed to yarns spun for their delectation, by sailor-men 
newly returned from cruises in the direction of fabled Cipango and far 
Cathay, the scientific gentlemen who composed the royal or imperial 
geographical societies of the fifteenth century became cunning to de- 
sign maps of the world which they offered in evidence, in support of 
theories on which they founded a system of physical geography that 
set at naught the established order of creation. These learned people 
not only said unto continents " Be ye removed and be ye cast into the 
sea," but, aided by their imaginations, raised from unfathomable depths 
populous archipelagoes or deserted islands with less mental labor and 



A VOYAGE TO THE UARIBBEES. 15 

expenditure of will-power than was necessary to enable Prospero to 
call spirits from the vasty deep. 

Of the cartographic curiosities produced by the glowing imagina- 
tions of these venerable savants the historian Hallam gives us his opin- 
ion in the following words : " These early maps and charts of the fif- 
teenth century are to us but a chaos of error and confusion, but it was 
on them that the patient eye of Columbus rested through long hours 
of meditation, while strenuous hope and unsubdued doubt were strug- 
gling in his soul." In 1474 the Italian mathematician Toscanelli fur- 
nished a map of the world, lately devised by him, to aid the would-be 
discoverer of new worlds in demonstrating to capitalists and royalties 
how simple a feat of seamanship it was to reach India by sailing west- 
ward across the Atlantic Ocean. The value of this contribution to the 
geography of Columbus' day maybe readily appreciated when we learn 
that, according to Toscanelli's calculations, the globe was but six thou- 
sand miles in diameter, thus conceding to the earth a circumference of 
less than nineteen thousand miles. By this convenient arrangement 
Toscanelli brought Cipango (Japan) nearer to Portugal by one-half of 
the distance than was afterward found to separate the two countries. 

When Bartholomew Columbus visited London, in the year 1488, 
for the purpose of interesting King Henry VII. in his brother's 
scheme for reaching the Indies, he carried with him a revised and 
corrected edition of Toscanelli's map ; but unfortunately neither the 
original nor the copy of it (the latter the first sea-chart exhibited in 
London) have been preserved. Wishing to put before my reader a 
representation of the Western Ocean as it was supposed to be in the 
year of the discovery of America, I will cause to be reproduced in 
this book of mine a map drawn and published in the year 1492 by 
Martin Behaim, the famous cosmographer, of Nuremberg, to whom 
was at one time accorded the honor of having discovered the new 
world ; although it is well-known, in these later days, that he had 
sailed no farther into the unknown sea than Fa} 7 al in the Azores. 

A glance at Behaim's map will serve to show that he was not one 



16 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



of the wise men who gave credence to the idea that there was a conti- 
nent to bar the advance of ships sailing westward from the Azores to 
Cathay. Although he was no wiser than others of his profession, his 
was an exception to the opinion generally entertained by the physical 
geographers of the fifteenth century, of whom a majority firmly be- 
lieved in the existence of a vast and populous land to the shores of 




Globus Martini Behaim 

Narinbergensis 

1492. 



which the prevailing easterly winds would waft the vessels of coura- 
geous mariners, should they continue sailing long enough toward the 
setting sun, taking no thought how they might win their way back to 
their own country until they were ready to return with a cargo of 
gold and spice, the wealth of Ormus and of Ind. To this fabled con- 
tinent, by those who maintained there was such an one, was given the 
name Antilla ; therefore it was reasonable, when Columbus arrived 



A VOYAGE TO THE CABIBBEES. 17 

among the islands composing what would fitly, and might well, in 
honor of their discoverer be named the Columbian Archipelago, that 
he imagined he had reached the Ante-Illas — the Forward — that is to 
say, the outlying islands, the advance-sentinels guarding the coast of 
the mysterious country where there were great cities and untold 
stores of precious stones. 

Peter Martyr, who was personally acquainted with the great 
Genovese (or was he a Corsican, as has been lately claimed), writing 
during the same year that Christopher Columbus returned from his 
first expedition in search of the new world, states : " The great ad- 
miral gives it out that he has discovered the island Ophir, but after 
considering the world as laid down by cosmographers, those must be 
the islands called Antillse." Early Spanish navigators, accepting this 
theory, called the islands, now known to English-speaking people as 
the "West Indies, Antillia. When wider explorations had added in- 
numerable islands to their charts, they divided the Columbian Ar- 
chipelago into two groups, naming them, respectively, " Islas de Lu- 
cayas" and " Islas de los Caribes," or "de los Cannibales." 

Of the first-named islands, which we now call the Bahamas, I need 
but to recall the fact that on the morning of October 13, 1492, Colum- 
bus on his first voyage of discovery sighted the island called by the 
natives " Guanihane " — and gave to it the name San Salvador. This 
was his first sight of the new world. 

On his second voyage, in the year 1493, Columbus discovered the 
Caribbean Archipelago in such manner as I shall hereafter relate. 

The islands of the Caribs and of the Cannibals were known to the 
Spaniards at a later date, and are set down on their charts, even until 
this very day, as " Islas de Barlovento " and " Islas de Sotavento " — 
that is to say, the Windward and Leeward Islands. Strictly speaking 
the Leeward Islands were' and are, Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola or 
Hayti, and Porto Pico ; they are also called the Greater Antilles ; 
while the smaller islands which extend for eight hundred and fifty 

miles, in a remarkably regular curve, from the southeastern point of 

2 



18 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

Porto Rico to the mouth of the Orinoco River, as well as the islands 
stretching along the north coast of Venezuela, are called the Windward 
Islands, or Lesser Antilles. 

The English apply the name West Indies to all the islands which 
separate the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of 
Mexico, but, " not content to let other nations keep a separate name to 
themselves," divide the group known to the rest of mankind as the 
Windward Islands into two lesser groups, naming the islands between 
Porto Rico and Martinique, the Leeward ; and those between Martin- 
ique and the mouth of the Orinoco, the Windward Islands. The archi- 
pelago thus subdivided by the British for their own convenience is also 
known as the Caribbean Islands. By this denomination we Ameri- 
cans designate the series of islands which to the north includes the 
Virgin Islands and to the south terminates with Trinidad. We also 
call the entire group the Windward Islands. 

The most northerly of the Caribbean Islands lie about fifteen hun- 
dred and fifty miles in a southeasterly direction from New York ; 
therefore a vessel bound to St. Christopher (the destination of the 
Barracouta) enters the Gulf Stream nearly one hundred and fifty 
miles from Sandy Hook, crosses this mighty current diagonally, pass- 
ing midway between Charleston, S. C, and Hamilton, the capital of 
the Bermuda Islands (the distance between these two seaports is, ap- 
proximately, eight hundred miles), and enters the tropics latitude 
23° fully one thousand miles to the east of the most southerly point 
of Florida, that is to say, in about the longitude of Halifax, Nova 
Scotia. 

On the afternoon of the sixth day of our voyage land was in sight, 
showing faintly against the southern sky, more to be guessed at than 
distinctly seen. At first we could barely make out the dim outline of 
the mountain -peaks of St. Martin. Not until an hour later, although 
lying many miles nearer to the ship, did the level, serpentine coast- 
line of Anguilla come into view ; then we discovered, directly ahead of 
us, the barren chalk-cliffs of Sombrero faintly showing their snow- 



A VOYAGE TO THE CARIBBEES. 19 

white battlements, like a line of breakers, above the blue plain of 
ocean. 

Toward this island, which English sailors call the Spanish Hat, 
we held our course until we could distinctly see the light-house built 
and maintained upon the rock by the British Government. 

Of little value to man is this bare, storm-beaten islet, a few acres 
in extent, rising at its highest point no more than forty feet above 
waves that forever beat against its perpendicular sides. There is but 
one safe landing-place in all the circumference of Sombrero, on the 
western or leeward side,, where a narrow ledge, at all times nearly 
awash, projects a short distance outward into the sea, forming a jetty 
by no means easy of approach. From this, a steep and narrow path 
leads to the level plain above. 

The island is formed of a perfectly white limestone; it shines and 
glistens in the dazzling sunlight until the eye, teased beyond endurance 
by the glare, gladly turns away from it to the restful green of fairer 
coasts in plain sight farther to the south. Sombrero is barren and 
desolate, with never a tree and scarce a blade of grass or other green 
thing growing on it — save a few prickly-pears, a strange cactus- 
growth that thrives in the midst of desolation — not even moss can 
find place to cling to the naked rock ; a fringe of deep-red sea-weed 
floats wide upon the water at tide-mark all round the foot of the 
cliffs, discoloring the foam, giving it a crimson stain. This lonely 
rock stands in the midst of the sea, a scorched and weather-beaten 
boundary marking where the waves of the Atlantic Ocean meet and 
mingle with the waters of the Caribbean Sea. It is uninhabited ex- 
cept by the keeper of the light station and his assistants, and a few 
quarrymen who live in miserable shanties, all huddled together near 
the middle of the island. These self -exiled workmen are engaged in 
breaking up the limestone rock, of which quantities are shipped away 
to be used in making fertilizers. 

Sombrero was once the resting-place of numberless sea-fowl ; in 
those days the people from neighboring islands used to come and 



20 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

collect the eggs. Now the birds have deserted their breeding-ground, 
and save for the human-kind laboring upon it there are no other living 
things to be found upon the rock except black lizards a few inches in 
length. There is little sweet-water to be found upon the island, for only 
a scant supply collects in the hollows of the rock during infrequent rains. 
This light-station, at the grand gate to the Caribbean Sea, lies in the 
channel between Anegada, the northernmost of the Virgin Islands, and 
Anguilla, the northeasternmost of the Caribbees ; it is forty-seven 
miles distant from the former, and bears northwest twenty-five miles 
from the edge of the reefs surrounding the latter. Sombrero is a 
little less than one mile in length from 1SLN.E. to S.S.W., not more 
than a thousand feet wide at its broadest part ; the lighthouse upon 
the southeast side of it stands in latitude 13° 35' 45" N., longitude 
63° 27' 46" "W. It shows, from an altitude of one hundred and fifty 
feet above the sea, a white light, revolving once a minute, visible 
about twenty miles from all points of the compass. Both to the east 
and to the west of Sombrero the channels are well-defined, so that 
vessels, having made this landfall, may go in safety either in enter- 
ing or in leaving the Caribbean Sea. Before the establishment of the 
light-house many vessels, losing their bearings, were wrecked upon the 
reefs which surround and outlie the nearest of the Virgin and other 
islands. 

The Barracouta passed close by Sombrero on its leeward side, 
within a quarter of a mile of the landing-place ; although we saluted 
the little colony with a blast of steam-whistle and by dipping our 
ensign, we received no answer or recognition, notwithstanding we could 
see people walking about on the shore, looking, at the distance, like 
black and brown ants on a great lump of white sugar. 

Anguilla, twenty-five miles, and St. Martin, forty miles distant, re- 
spectively were in plain sight from Sombrero, and shortly after leav- 
ing it behind us Saba came distinctly into view sixty miles away to 
the east of south ; presently St. Eustatius uplifted its pyramid still 
more to the east, at a distance of seventy-five miles ; then, as we con- 



A VOYAGE TO TEE GABIBBEES. 21 

tinued on our course, St. Bartholomew opened out from behind the 
mountains of St. Martin. 

At last, St. Christopher loomed up large and bold far ahead of 
us, ninety miles to the southeast of Sombrero, its great peaks grandly 
showing between St. Bartholomew on the east and St. Eustatius and 
Saba on the west. Our good ship had entered the Caribbean Sea — 
our cruise down the islands was fairly begun. 



CHAPTER II. 



AN AFTERNOON ON DECK. 



The Northern Caribbees — Anguilla — Its ' ' Wild Irish " Settlers and Present Inhabitants 
— St. Martin, a Franco-Dutch Island — St. Bartholomew — Saba, a Crater Shipyard 
— St. Eustatius — Arrival at St. Christopher. 



VEIi the blue water of the Carib- 
bean Sea the Barracouta held her 
way, going along a good ten knots, 
rolling easily with a gentle mo- 
tion that lulled even the most alert 
and open-eyed of her passengers 
into moments of comfortable for- 
getfulness. Several times during 
the afternoon I caught myself 
" dropping off," and the Doctor that 
evening explained his appearance 
on deck, long after his customary 
bedtime, by admitting that between 
luncheon and dinner-time he had 
on four or five different occasions managed to get forty winks. As 
for the Salmagundian, he frankly announced that there was no use 
trying to keep his eyes open, and to the best of my recollection he 
did not try. Several times, indeed , he aroused himself long enough 
to study the poses of his fellow-passengers as they lay " promiscu- 
ous, lapped in balmy sleep " on the deck, or lolled in deck-chairs, too 
charmed to read or talk, too comfortable to move, some of them 




AN AFTERNOON ON DECK 23 

apparently too lazy to breathe. They snored instead ! When the 
Salmagundian had contemplated the drowsy scene, he mumbled 
something about charcoal-paper and making a sketch, but he never 
carried out his threat. Once, after a long silence, he pulled himself 
together sufficiently to mutter in a weary tone, as if dazed and over- 
come by the discovery : 

" The ship joggles ! " 

Once he attempted to leave his deck-chair, but sank back spine- 
lessly ; a far-away look came into his eyes, his mind wandered, and 
so, with a great sigh, softly murmuring : " We're a nod lot," he 
flickered, so to speak, for an instant, and went out into forgetfulness. 
The Salmagundian slept ! What an afternoon it was when we 
sighted the most northern group of the lovely Caribbees ! I shall 
never forget it. Reader, I shall not try (it would be utterly useless, 
so far beyond the power of words) to describe the glory of it. Even 
now, long afterward, to think of -it awakens memories of sensuous de- 
light ; it seems as if, eons ago, I had lived with the lotos-eaters — had 
visited the land where it is always afternoon. 

After leaving Sombrero astern the steamer passed within a few 
miles of Anguilla (Anguis Insula), or Snake Island, a long, narrow, 
serpentine strip of land — as its name implies, an almost treeless plain 
— inhabited by herdsmen who make but little, if any, attempt to 
cultivate the unfruitful soil or prepare scant pasturage for a few miser- 
able herds of cattle and half-starved flocks of sheep that " bite the 
herbage," as Dr. Sam Johnson would have said — "graze" would be too 
enthusiastic a term to describe their futile efforts to fill their bellies 
with sun-dried grass and weeds. 

More than two hundred years ago the French settlers of St. Chris- 
topher sent an agent to spy out this island. On his return from his 
mission he reported to his countrymen : 

" Uisle n'est pas estime'e valoir la peine qiCon la garde ni qu'on 
la cultiveP 

And his people, accepting this low estimate of the value and fer- 



24 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



tility of Anguilla, left the few fishermen already settled upon it in 
undisturbed possession of their unfruitful and sterile inheritance. A 
few years later there landed upon the island a number of people 







«rv/*»v-' 









A Caribbean Bo-peep 



whom Oldmixon in his ancient chronicle quaintly calls Wild-Irish, to 
distinguish them from the English of Ireland. These wretches, he 
writes, " thinking it to be impossible for men to be poorer than them- 
selves, took away from the miserable inhabitants even the little that 



AN AFTERNOON ON DECK. 25 

they seemed to have," drove the peaceful toilers of the sea from 
the island and occupied their settlements. The Wild Irish enjoyed, 
for a time at least, all the privileges of home rule, and the statement 
made by West Indian historians, that the colonists spent the time in 
fighting among themselves like Kilkenny cats, until the Government 
of Great Britain assumed the direction of their affairs, without the 
formality of conquest or treaty of annexation, may be, and probably, 
in justice, had better be, taken with a charitable pinch of salt. Be 
all that as it may, Anguilla became a British colony, and has re- 
mained under English rule until this day. 

The population of the island is estimated to be nearly two thou- 
sand five hundred souls, whereof only one hundred are whites, all the 
rest being either colored or of pure African blood. The island is 
under the Presidency of St. Christopher, but has a local government 
of its own, at the head of which is a stipendiary magistrate whose 
salary is a charge on the Imperial exchequer. This official is chair- 
man of a vestry composed of three members elected by the islanders, 
and three chosen by the Crown ; these seven gentlemen conduct the 
affairs of the colony, directing the disbursement of an annual revenue 
of less than £600. It is fair to say that the annual expenditures at no 
time exceed the income of this little government, and it may there- 
fore be presumed that the taxation to which the people of Anguilla 
are subjected is not very grievous to be borne, seeing that it amounts 
to no more than five shillings per capita per annum. There are two 
local courts on the island, from which an appeal lies to the Supreme 
Court of the Leeward Islands. 

Anguilla extends northeast and southwest for fourteen miles, and 
is at no place of greater breadth than three miles. On its northern 
side the hills rise to the height of two hundred feet, the highest eleva- 
tion being in the neighborhood of Crocus Bay, where is the chief 
settlement. Toward the south and west the land falls away to the sea, 
the southern shore being low, at a short distance seaward barely show- 
ing above high-water mark. Around this main island are numerous 



26 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

islets. Scrub Islet, also called Anguillita, lies to the east, distant 
about a quarter of a mile ; this, and Dog Island on the northwest, 
are the largest of the outlying dependencies. The channel between 
Anguilla and St. Martin to the south is four miles wide, affording a 
safe passage for the largest ships. Anguilla lies sixty miles northwest 
of St. Christopher. 

There is little to attract attention to this flat and uninteresting 
place ; nevertheless, it seemed beautiful to me. Even the parched 
moorland in the afternoon light put on a garb of rich and mellow 
coloring, and all around the sea framed it in, making a picture of great 
loveliness, wonderful for the effect of softly blending outlines and deli- 
cate shading. 

To the south, in striking contrast to the low, uninteresting, level 
plain of Anguilla, St. Martin towers above the sea in picturesque 
grandeur. We passed within five miles of its leeward coast, upon 
which the sunlight of afternoon shone, glorifying all the western shore. 
The mountains and savannahs presented an exquisite landscape of rare 
color, flecked by shadows of drifting clouds, the sombre tints of for- 
ests and darkened valleys all showing like an embroidered pattern of 
oriental carpeting. 

Fertile meadows and plantations spread over the hill- sides between 
the sea-shore and the dense forests on the mountain-steeps ; here and 
there villages, isolated dwellings, and hamlets of white-walled farm- 
buildings, roofed with red tiles, appeared among groves of palms and 
fruit-bearing trees. On the sea, between the steamer's wake and 
rugged cliffs overhanging a long margin of breakers, the sails of fish- 
ing-boats glistened in the sunlight as the steady northeast trade-wind 
wafted them far out from shore. We were loath to hasten past so 
lovely a picture, but comforted ourselves with the thought that on our 
return homeward we might perhaps feast our eyes with one more 
view of St. Martin, our first love. 

The early Spanish navigators used to resort to this island for the 
purpose of procuring salt, which was taken in great abundance from 



AN AFTERNOON ON DECK. 27 

natural pans along the shore ; but they made no lasting settlements, and 
St. Martin was not occupied permanently until the Dutch and French 
entered into joint possession of it, and the descendants of these early 
settlers continue until this day living peaceably together on the island, 
preserving the traditions and language, the manners and time-honored 
customs, of their forefathers. The Dutch were the first to arrive in 
the island after the Spaniards left it — being led thither from St. 
Eustatius by no less celebrated a personage than Admiral de Ruyter, 
who happened to be cruising in these seas at the time. The French 
came to St. Martin shortly after the Dutch, and, by an amicable ar- 
rangement with the representative of the States General, divided the 
island with them, keeping the northwest part for themselves, while 
the Hollanders withdrew to the southeastern portion, congratulat- 
ing themselves upon having the best of the bargain, seeing that the 
most profitable salt-ponds were included in their reservation. At first 
the Dutch outnumbered the French, but in these latter days this 
order of things has been reversed — the latest enumeration of the in- 
habitants showing that, while there are between four or five thousand 
citoyens who shrug the shoulder, there are less than three thousand 
burghers who lay the forefinger alongside the nose. As was to be ex- 
pected, there has been considerable confusion of tongues in naming 
places, bodies of water, and divisions of the dry land, in this colony, 
divided as it is between the people of two nations ; thus we find 
PTiilvpsburg, the seat of government of the Dutch part of the island, 
at the head of Grande Baie, the entrance to which is, or rather was in 
days gone by, guarded by Fort Willem and Fort Amsterdam. Morne 
de la Fortune, a conical peak forming a bold promontory, juts far into 
the sea from the northwest coast, confronting Oostenberg, a promi- 
nent landmark soaring heavenward a few miles farther to the south. 
There is a Baie d : Orient, an Anse de la Grande Case, and bays with 
names as Dutch as Zuyder Zee. Finally, just as the men of ancient 
Athens erected an altar to the Unknown, so did some of the early set- 
tlers of St. Martin— heaven only knows if they were of Hollandish or 



28 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

Frankish speech — name a great crag in honor of the unknowable, call- 
ing it, whatever the name may mean or portend, Mollibeday Hock. 
The figure of the island resembles an equilateral triangle, its sides 
facing the east, northwest, and southeast, each about seven miles in 
length. The coast is very irregular, being deeply indented by bays 
and inlets, in some of which there are good anchorages and careening 
places. A high ridge of table-land extends through the island from 
north to south, whereof the loftiest peaks are nearly fourteen hun- 
dred feet in height. A few miles to the east of the westernmost 
point of St. Martin, Marigot Baie makes into the shore, and at the 
head of it, hiding from the sea, is the little town of Marigot, the 
capital of the French part of the island. 

About twelve miles to the southeast of St. Martin lies St. Bar- 
tholomew, or St. Bart's as it is commonly called, an island that was 
colonized by the French in 1650. Later it came into the possession 
of the Swedes, to which historic fact the name of Gustavia (Gustaf), 
its capital, in some sort bears testimony. We did not approach St. 
Bart's near enough to gain any idea of its fertility or of the amount of 
its surface under cultivation, or of the situations of its towns and set- 
tlements. St. Bartholomew is said to be peopled by men of no con- 
siderable enterprise, and the life of its inhabitants is peaceful, not to 
say indolent. There is little to disturb the quiet of society, such so- 
ciety as may be found in a population of four thousand, and we may 
well believe that, lying as it does out of the direct line of travel, hav- 
ing no commerce of importance, and a soil, as compared with that of 
other islands, unproductive, life in this community is one eternal round 
of dulness ; therefore, as Davies the historian said of it more than two 
hundred years ago, so may it with equal truth be written in our day, 
to wit. : " Such as are enclined to solitude cannot dispose themselves 
to a fitter place for it than this is." 

We sailed between St. Eustatius or Statia and Saba, Dutch islands 
both of them, rising out of the sea in majestic cones ; that of Statia 
falling away on its northern side into a broken plain of meadow- 



AN AFTERNOON ON BECK. 29 

land, while Saba is ramparted all round about with a wall of stupen- 
dous cliffs. Saba is inhabited by a few settlers of Dutch ancestry, 
about two thousand in all, who dwell high up above the sea in little 
settlements ; the largest of them, one thousand feet above sea-level, is 
called The Bottom, for the reason that its houses cuddle together in 
the depths of a crater of an extinct volcano. The cliffs rise perpen- 
dicularly from the ocean, and access to the habitable part of this quaint 
colony is to be had only by climbing up a flight of eight hundred 
steps, cut in the solid rock, or by a more tedious climb up a narrow and 
almost impassable ravine on the south side of the island. The peo- 
ple of Saba are celebrated throughout the Caribbean Islands for the 
fishing-boats they build in a crater — the oddest of places imaginable for 
a ship-yard. When the boats are ready to be launched, they are low- 
ered down the overhanging precipices into the sea. There is no tim- 
ber growing on the island, no beach from which to launch a boat when 
it is built, no harbor to shelter- one when launched, and yet these 
Dutch "West Indians profit by their trade of boat-building, and cruise 
all about the Caribbean Archipelago in the staunch, sea-worthy craft 
they construct in the hollow of a crater on the top of their mountain- 
colony. 

From the verge of the sea-wall of mighty precipices the face of 
Saba inclines upward and backward like an embankment piled upon 
the masonry of a cyclopean fortification ; the ascent to the top of the 
conical peak of the island, which is over two thousand eight hundred 
feet high, is steep, and in many places impossible to be climbed, as 
may well be imagined when the fact is stated that the greatest diameter 
of Saba is but two and a quarter miles. A landing can only be made 
at this little colony when the winds are moderate and the sea is smooth ; 
there are no safe anchorages, and sailing vessels do not attempt to ap- 
proach the great rock except in cases of necessity, or under most favor- 
able circumstances, notwithstanding the statement contained in mari- 
ners' guides that there is very little current in the sea surrounding 
Saba, and the rise and fall of the tide are almost imperceptible. None 



30 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



of the islands we had hitherto seen, and none we were thereafter to 
behold, awakened so much curiosity in my mind, or provoked such a 
longing to go on shore for the purpose of visiting the quaint settle- 
ment, to study the romantic life of this strange folk, to watch them 
build their boats, and, if need be, bear a hand at the launching of one 
of the little craft as it was lowered down the cliffs, to be wet for the 
first time with salt-water. Alas ! I had to be content with hurrying 
past the place, and have therefore ever since promised myself that 
when my ship comes in (she has been homeward bound many a year) 




Statia. 



I shall put to sea again in my own pleasure-craft, lay my course for 
the Caribbees, land at, or rather go on board of, Saba, there to remain 
until the idea of dwelling on a mountain in the midst of the sea should 
no longer to my mind be a wonderful experience, and one that chal- 
lenged my especial admiration. 

St. Eustatius, in the early days of its settlement by the Dutch, was 
a most fertile and diligently cultivated settlement. Its mountain-tops 
were covered by a luxuriant growth of forest, and " all the compass of 
its sides were highly productive; it can hardly be credited what quan- 
tities of tobacco it hath hitherto, and still doth yield," wrote a visitor 



AN AFTERNOON ON DECK. 31 

to Statia in 1664. At the present time it cannot be said to enjoy any 
degree of prosperity, and few of the descendants of the original settlers, 
remain upon the island. Its glory has departed ; the soil, exhausted 
by reckless cultivation, yields but small return for the labor expended 
upon it. There is but little trade of any kind, either export or import, 
between the island and any other part of the world, except that annu- 
ally a few cargoes of yams, the chief crop now raised there, are 
shipped away to St. Christopher or to the other neighboring colonies. 
Orangetown, the only town in Statia, lies on the western coast, partly 
on the beach, and partly on the cliffs, one hundred and fifty feet above. 
In front of it, antiquated Fort Orange crumbles slowly away through, 
all these years of peace, of no more value as a defence, in time of war, 
as war is waged nowadays, than a breastplate of beaten iron in a 
battle between soldiers armed with needle-guns or Remington rifles. 
St. Eustatius, or St. Eustace, as Davies the historian calls it, has been 
a Dutch colony ever since 1600, many years before Peter Stuyvesant 
governed in the New Netherlands. Once the island was temporarily 
in the possession of Great Britain, for in the year 1782 Admiral 
Rodney, of whose name and fame the history of the Caribbean Islands, 
contains frequent and glorious mention, captured Statia, at the same 
time reducing St. Bart's, St. Martin, and almost inaccessible Saba, to 
subjection to the crown of Great Britain. Rodney secured by these 
conquests immense booty of merchandise and ships, but leaving Statia 
insufficiently defended, it was shortly afterward retaken by French 
and Dutch adventurers, and has remained in the possession of descend- 
ants of the latter until the present time. 

St. Eustatius is separated from St. Christopher by a channel seven 
miles in width ; across this the Barracouta steamed after night had 
fallen and we had lost all view of land. The stars were shining with 
wonderful lustre, casting wavering reflections in the sea ; the water 
was unruffled, the wind having died away under the lee of the lofty 
peaks of St. Christopher. It was nearly midnight when we ran into 
the shadows of mighty hills and skirted along the western coast of the 



32 



DO WN THE ISLANDS. 



island, which we could barely discern in the darkness, although we 
sailed quite close to it. The ship held a straight course for more than 
an hour ; then, rounding a bold headland, entered a broad and peaceful 
roadstead where shone the lights of many vessels lying at anchor. 
Presently the engine was slowed down ; as the pulsations and throb- 
bings of the great heart ceased, a mysterious silence fell around us ; 
with lessening speed the Barracouta threaded her way among the 
shipping to her anchorage. Suddenly there came a sharp cry out of 
the darkness, " Let go ! " and there was a mighty splash, followed by 
the roar and rattle of fathom upon fathom of chain. The first stage 
of our journey was over. Our good ship had anchored in the harbor 
of Basseterre, the chief town of St. Kitt's. 




CHAPTER III. 

ST. CHRISTOPHER. 

St. Kitt's Liamuiga, the Fertile. — Historical Notes. — Governor's Warner and DEsnam- 
buc. — English and French Settlement of St. Christopher. — Final Banishment of 
the French. — Sunrise in Basseterre Roadstead. — The Fleet of Bumboats. — At- 
tacked by Fruit-sellers and Washerwomen. — Effecting a Landing. 

The Caribs, the ancient and warlike people once the lords of the beau- 
tiful island where we had cast anchor, called it Liamuiga (the Fer- 
tile), and well does it deserve that name. Columbus, passing near it 
in November, 1493, on his way from Dominica to Hispaniola, being 
charmed with its loveliness and finding it very pleasant, as we are told 
by an ancient chronicler, would needs give it his name. " He was 
engaged to give it this name from a consideration of the figure of its 
mountain, the island having at its upper part, as it were upon one of its 
shoulders, another lesser mountain, as St. Christopher is painted carry- 
ing our Saviour upon his, as it were a little child." The English, upon 
taking possession of the island many years afterward, rechristened 
their newly acquired colony, calling it St. Kitt's, by which name St. 
Christopher is now generally known. Columbus did not tarry long at 
the land that found such favor in his sight ; indeed, it is by no means 
certain that he or any of his crew landed upon it, being eager to arrive 
at the continent which their imagination pictured to them lying within 
a few days' sail of the newly discovered archipelago. There is no evi- 
dence that the Spaniards made an attempt at any time to establish 
a settlement on the island. Its fertile, forest- covered valleys and hill- 
sides had no attractions for them — its rugged hills yielded no gold, 



34: DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

the sole object of the avarice which tempted them in search of the 
fabled wealth of unknown worlds. 

For one hundred and twenty-five years the Caribs remained in 
possession of Liamuiga, until the year 1618, when a certain Mr. 
Thomas Warner, an adventurous and enterprising trader, accompanied 
shipmaster Roger Isorth on a voyage to Surinam, where he fell in 
with Captain Thomas Painton, who proposed to Warner that instead 
of endeavoring to establish themselves in a part of the world where 
the Dutch had already secured a foothold, they should attempt the 
settlement of one of the smaller Caribbean Islands. Painton gave so 
glowing a report of the beauty, fertility, and natural advantages of St. 
Christopher that Warner decided to repair thither with him, to the 
end that they two should found a colony. Painton died in Surinam, 
but Warner, returning to England in 1620, for the purpose of enlisting 
the co-operation of his patrons in this new enterprise, immediately 
busied himself to carry out the project, of which he now became the 
sole promoter. With great difficulty he induced fourteen adventurers 
as needy as himself to embark with him in a vessel bound for Vir- 
ginia, where they arrived in safety after a stormy voyage across the 
Atlantic, and, sailing thence soon after their arrival, reached St. Chris- 
topher in January, 1623. It has been claimed for Barbados that it is 
the most ancient of all the British colonies in the West Indies, and it 
is indeed true, as I shall hereafter show, that the Olive Blossom, a 
British ship, having touched there in 1605, remained at anchor long 
enough to allow its commander to take possession of that island in the 
name of James I., but it is also true that no permanent settlement 
was established in Barbados until twenty years later ; for the Olive 
Blossom continued on her voyage to countries farther to the west and 
south, leaving the Island Barbados desolate and uninhabited. The 
colonists sent out by Sir William Courteen, under the patronage of the 
Earl of Marlborough, did not arrive at Barbados till the latter part of 
1624, more than a year after Mr. Thomas Warner had taken possession 
of St. Christopher. It is maintained by some historians that a number 



ST. CHRISTOPHER. 35 

of French emigrants, led by M. D'Esnambuc, landed on the island the 
very same, day that "Warner's little band pre-empted their claim to 
their settlement, in spite of the vigorous protests of the natives of 
Liamuiga, who attempted to prevent the landing of the unwelcome 
new-comers, but the French historian Du Tertre, who never failed to 
support any claim his countrymen saw fit to set up to any one of the 
Caribbean Islands, or, for that matter, to any part of the habitable 
earth, admits that D'Esnambuc did not leave France till 1625. There- 
fore St. Christopher can rightly lay claim to the proud distinction of 
being considered the oldest "West Indian possession of the British 
Crown, all the pretensions of the Barbadians and the Frenchmen to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

During the first year of their residence on St. Kitt's, the English 
colonists saw their plantations utterly demolished by a hurricane, and 
by this disaster found themselves so reduced in circumstances that 
Warner was obliged to return* to England to implore assistance. 
While at home he secured the patronage of James Hay, Earl of Car- 
lisle, who fitted out, at his own charges, a ship laden with food and ag- 
ricultural implements, and sent it with quick despatch to St. Christo- 
pher, where it arrived in the spring of 1624. Warner returned to his 
colony during the following year, accompanied by a number of new 
recruits. It is more than probable that D'Esnambuc, the captain of a 
French privateer whose ship had been disabled in an engagement 
with a Spanish galleon, sought refuge in one of the roadsteads of the 
island on the day of Warner's second arrival, thus lending some color 
to the claim that he shared with Warner the honor of first colonizing 
St. Christopher. Being constantly in danger of an attack by the Ca- 
ribs, who made a brave resistance to the attempts of the strangers to 
drive them from their island-home, the English settlers received D'Es- 
nambuc and his thirty followers most cordially, entered into an ami- 
cable agreement with them, and, having joined forces, ruthlessly massa- 
cred the natives and divided the island between them. The English 
settled at Sandy Point on the northwestern, and the French at Basse- 



36 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

terre on the southwestern shore. After the massacre of the Caribs, 
an act of brutal barbarity which Du Tertre calls a glorious victory, 
the settlers were troubled no more by the natives, and the French and 
English colonists remained at peace with one another, cultivating the 
fruitful soil and increasing in wealth and numbers. Warner and 
D'Esnambuc returned each to his own country. Warner was knighted 
in 1625, receiving the appointment to the Governorship of St. Chris- 
topher, and came again that year to the island, accompanied by four 
hundred new recruits. D'Esnambuc, who, being taken under the 
patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, was joined by more than five hundred 
emigrants, put to sea in February, 1627, with his expedition, in ships so 
poorly equipped and provisioned that many of the company perished 
miserably during the voyage for want of food. The survivors were 
kindly received by the English settlers, for they took pity on the 
Frenchmen in their wretched plight and gave them such provisions as 
could be spared from their own scanty store ; thus the people of the 
two nations for many years lived amicably together on their island- 
home. 

In the reign of Charles I., during his war with the Dutch, France 
having declared for the latter the French settlers in St. Christopher, 
unmindful of past favors, drove the Englishmen from their settlement. 
The exiles thus unceremoniously driven away by their ungrateful 
neighbors, were however restored to their homes and lands by the 
Treaty of Breda. During the Revolution in England the French, pre- 
tending to espouse the cause of the abdicated king, expelled the Eng- 
lish a second time from St. Christopher and remained for nearly a 
year sole masters of the island. This action on their part is alleged to 
have been one of the causes that induced William and Mary to de- 
clare war against Louis XIV. In 1690 General Codrington, Governor 
of Barbados, on receipt of the news of the Battle of the Boyne, fitted 
out an armament to capture St. Christopher. In this adventure all 
the English islands joined. The expedition consisted of three thou- 
sand armed men, of which number seven hundred were English sol- 



ST. CHRISTOPHER. 37 

diers, eight hundred from Nevis and Barbados, eight hundred from 
Antigua, four hundred from Montserrat, and two hundred gentlemen 
volunteers. This large force of men, conveyed in eleven men-of-war, 
accompanied by five tenders, met with little or no resistance, and ex- 
perienced little difficulty in capturing the island, when about two 
thousand of its French inhabitants were banished to Martinique and 
San Domingo. 

The French made several attempts to re-establish themselves on 
the island, and in a measure succeeded in doing so, a remnant remain- 
ing at St. Christopher until in Queen Anne's day, when they were 
finally driven from the island by the English, who held it successfully 
against all comers until the, end of the war, when, by the Peace of 
Utrecht, St. Ivitt's was ceded to Great Britain, in wmose possession it 
has remained until the present time. During the war for American 
independence it is said that the people of St. Kitt's sympathized with 
the rebellious colonies, but were prevented, by the presence of an Eng- 
lish fleet in their neighborhood, from actively participating in the war 
against the mother country. 

The Island of St. Christopher lies in latitude 17° 18' 1ST. ; in longi- 
tude 62° 48' "W. The main body of the island is an oval, nearly thir- 
teen miles long, little less than six miles in width at its broadest part, 
and contains an area of about sixty -eight square miles, or nearly forty- 
four thousand acres, of which thirty thousand are under cultivation. 
Its entire surface, except toward the southeastern extremity, is very 
mountainous. The Conarrhee Hills uplift their heads around the 
lofty and precipitous crags of Mount Misery, which towers heaven- 
ward in the centre of the island to a height of four thousand three 
hundred and fourteen feet. 

From the southeastern shore a long neck of uncultivated land, a 
quarter of a mile in width makes out for three miles or more into the 
sea, increasing, fan-like, in extent. The surface of the land at first 
gradually rises toward the south, then abruptly mounts upward, form- 
ing a cluster of conical hills called St. Anthony's Peaks, all of them 



38 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

bare of trees but covered with a growth of bristling grasses, mimosae, 
and a great variety of cacti such as thrive best in sterile, parched soil 
or among volcanic rocks. 

The view looking north toward the land from the deck of the Bar- 
racouta at sunrise on the morning after our arrival at Basseterre was 
extremely beautiful and inspiring — a scene, not easily, if ever, to be for- 
gotten. The steamer was at anchor about half a mile from shore ; 
before us an amphitheatre of mountains enclosing the town extended 
from a promontory rising boldly from the sea on the north to high 
and rugged cliffs plunging into the ocean at the southeastern end of the 
island. The land ascends gently from a crescent of sand by which the 
harbor is bounded on the north and east. The picturesque little town 
lies close by the margin of the sea, and beyond it, sugar-plantations 
extend upward on the left of the picture until they join the dense 
forests by which the mountain-sides are overgrown ; on the right, 
toward the southeast, spreading over the neck of land I have men- 
tioned above, lies the valley of Basseterre, between Monkey Hill, one 
thousand three hundred and nineteen feet in height, on the northwest 
and the group of rugged cone-shaped heights on the southeast. 

At intervals here and there among groves of palms, mango, tama- 
rind, ceiba, and many other wonderful flowering trees the houses of 
the planters, who own all this fair country, overlook fertile meadows 
and valleys, the town and the harbor, with its great fleet of ships. 
The peaks and summits of the mountains rise, one behind the other, 
until in the background, overtopping all, the almost inaccessible pin- 
nacle of Mount Misery pierces the clouds that seldom lift from the top 
of this once active but now slumbering volcano. On infrequent cloud- 
less days, for it is a rare occurrence to see Mount Misery uncovered at 
any season of the year, the blackened, fire-worn crests surrounding 
and overhanging its hideous crater may be seen a hundred miles or 
more out at sea. The ruggedness and wildness of this magnificent 
mountain serve only to render the contrast of the cultivated country be- 
tween it and the ocean more strikingly beautiful. Toward the south- 



ST. CHRISTOPHER. 39 

east the grand, symmetrical cone of Nevis, rising from the seas beyond 
a narrow strait, stands out bold and clear against the sky, making a 
landscape of such surpassing beauty that it would be impossible to 
sail fifteen hundred miles, or, for that matter, any number of miles 
from Sandy Hook in any direction, and make a fairer landfall than 
the harbor of Basseterre. 

Long before sunrise I had been awakened by a perfect babel of 
voices, and my first appearance on deck was the signal for a storm of 
shouts and cries from a multitude of boatmen in a fleet of small 
boats surrounding the steamer. There were stevedores and long- 
shoremen, fruit-sellers and washerwomen, venders of knick-knacks, 
flowers, shells, and coral, geological, and botanical specimens ; all the 
congregation of traffickers howled at me, gesticulating frantically, as 
each and everyone besought, nay, commanded, me and my fellow-ob- 
servers of the riotous scene to buy their wares, deliver up our raiment 
to be washed, or to take passage on their craft. The boatmen 
screamed out the names of their boats and their own names, they 
jostled their little vessels together in a fierce contest to approach near- 
est to the side of the ship or to bring their boats closest to the foot 
of the companion-ladder. They threatened one another with terrible 
cries and frantic gestures. From moment to moment we expected to 
see a dozen or score of them tumble overboard. At times it seemed 
as if riot and bloodshed were inevitable ; indeed, as if a riot had 
already broken out. The noise and confusion were more deafening and 
astounding than that created by cabmen at a railroad depot at home in 
New York, at times equalling the din and disorder of our Stock Ex- 
change during a tight money market or a corner in stocks. 

I happened to step to the side of the vessel for the purpose of 
bargaining for some fruit that had attracted my attention and for 
which my teeth watered ; I was received with a stunning chorus by the 
entire flotilla. High above the general tumult and explosion of noise 
soared such, fortissimi fragments as — 

" Mary Jane's awaiting f o' you, dear massa." Mary Jane, be it ob- 



40 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

served, was the name of a boat. " Don't forget Aleck, sir ! " " Cush- 
ions in dis boat." " Do yo' washin'." " 'Member Lucy." Whether 
Lucy was a boat or a washerwoman I remain to this day in blissful ig- 
norance. " I'se waitin' for yer, captain." " Here's yo' bes' figs." I 
learned afterward that figs signified bananas — fig-bananas. " Take yo' 
asho' jus' now." And so on. By a shake of my head I diverted the 
deluge of words from myself and my affairs, and the fickle crowd 
dedicated their remarks to one another. " Massa don' wan' yo' boat." 
" He won't trust hisself wid you." " He told you to go away." " I 
knock you in de water." " Shut you mouf, you nigga." 

Here, as elsewhere, " nigger " was employed as a term of reproach 
among negroes. In the scramble and mimic battle oars were broken, 
rudders became unshipped and drifted away with the tide, boatmen lost 
their hats, fruit-sellers their fruits, curiosities were spilled into the sea, 
and I saw one great specimen of coral at least return with a splash to the 
ocean-depths that bore it. The darkies, roaring like wild beasts, seemed 
ready, or ever we came to the bottom of the ship's ladder, to rend us in 
pieces and take us ashore piecemeal. By and by, exhausted by long- 
continued frantic struggling, as well as by the wear and tear of the 
lungs and throats, after the storm and war of words there came a great 
and grateful calm of silence. 

In the meantime, a large gang of stevedores had boarded the ship, 
the hatches fore and aft were taken off, and steam- winches were set a- 
running. The work of breaking out aud discharging cargo was going 
on with such wonderful rapidity that it took but little time to load six 
or seven lighters lying alongside, to start them shoreward, while their 
places were promptly taken by others in readiness to be made fast to 
the ship. As soon as storage-room was made below by removing such 
of the cargo as happened to be consigned to St. Ivitt's, a quantity of 
freight destined to other ports was brought to the Barracouta from 
shore. In this manner, the operations of loading and unloading went 
on simultaneously and with remarkable activity throughout the live- 
long day until late in the evening. During our trip down the islands 



ST. CHRISTOPHER. 



41 



our ship was compelled to anchor at a distance from shore, for the 
reason that at none of our stopping-places, save at Demerara, did we 
find any harbors, and were therefore obliged to lay at anchorage in 
open roadsteads. So far from finding these positions off-shore incon- 




venient or undesirable, we dis- 
covered that our isolation was 
a great addition to our com- 
fort, for, no matter how warm 
it may have been on the land 
there was always a cool breeze 
blowing across the water, 
therefore at no time of the 
night or day were we oppress- 
ed by the heat, nor was our privacy invaded by a staring, gabbling 
crowd of wonder-seeking dock-rats and loungers. It was not monoto- 
nous to be thus cut off from immediate communication with the land, 
for in every harbor we visited in the West Indies the Barracouta be- 
came the centre of a fleet of small boats filled with darkies who, while 
keeping at a respectable distance, kept also a sharp lookout for our 



Street Scenes. 



42 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

spare change and were a constant source of amusement to us, entertain- 
ing us by their quaint remarks and grotesque behavior. At every port 
of call there were neat, clean-looking washerwomen ready to take our 
linen in charge, many of them by no means inexperienced hlanchisseuses, 
for they did their work neatly, thoroughly, and promptly ; received 
payment therefor graciously, earnestly soliciting our further favors, 
" Nex' time yo' come back, dear massa." 

It was astonishing with what quantities of fruit we passengers on 
the Barracouta were tempted ; and the cheapness of it, as well as the 
inexhaustible supply of all kinds, was still more to be marvelled at by 
those of us who could not rid our minds of the idea that tropical fruits 
were of necessity luxuries, in the nature of things costly, and therefore 
to be indulged in sparingly except by those whose purses were com- 
mensurate with their appetite for expensive delicacies of the kind. 
Oranges, limes, bananas, mangoes, pines, soursops, avocado-pears, and 
other juicy, tempting comestibles before untasted by us who were mak- 
ing our first discoveries of the delights of a West Indian voyage, were 
constantly in active demand; in fact, any appetizing morsel that ap- 
peared to be good for food or was pleasant to the eye commanded a 
ready sale, regardless of quality or degree of ripeness. We held as 
naught the old Spanish proverb which sets forth the varying metal- 
lurgical properties of fruit according to the time of day it happens to 
be eaten by human beings. The arrival of a fruit-seller's boat along- 
side the vessel was watched with eager interest ; the discovery of any 
hitherto untried specimen was promptly advertised by cries of, " Hi ! 
you there ! how much are those ? What'll you take for the lot, basket 
and all?" The inquiries frequently made by us of the hucksters we 
patronized, "Is it good to eat ? " " Do you eat it raw ? " invariably 
excited the unrestrained mirth of the colored by-standers. The fruit- 
sellers took a childish delight in showing us how strange varieties were 
to be made ready for the experimental bite, which was generally taken 
in the presence of a silent, expectant group of the purchaser's fellow- 
passengers. 



ST. CHRISTOPHER. 43 

A number of passengers, of whom I was one, were ferried ashore 
about seven o'clock. We landed in safety on a well-built pier project- 
ing a hundred feet or more from the beach, on which the waves were 
tumbling within a few yards of the front walls of a row of stores and 
warehouses, built in a curve along the shore. Immediately upon set- 
ting foot on land we were surrounded by a host of fruit and flower- 
sellers, and those having cocoanuts and sugar-cane for sale ; all of 
them, singly and collectively, and no less noisily than their brethren 
in the boats which had followed us landward from the ship, clamored 
for our patronage, thrusting their wares into our faces — indeed, I may 
say, with much color of truth, almost into our mouths. Being abun- 
dantly supplied, by reason of purchases made aforetime on board ship, 
we politely but firmly refused all the bargains which were offered with 
exasperating persistence not to say maddening reiteration, walked up 
the wharf, passed through a picturesque and ancient gate-way, ran the 
gauntlet of Her Majesty's customs-officers, and at last found ourselves 
in the metropolis of St. Christopher. 



CHAPTER IV. 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 



Basseterre, the Capital of St. Kitt's. — Slavery and Windmills. — Free Labor and Steam- 
power. — A Magnificent Landscape. — Distant Views. — The Barber of Basseterre. — 
A Wonderful Garden. — A Host of New-found Friends. — The Voyage to Antigua. 

Basseterre, the capital of St. Christopher, is a town of sixteen or sev- 
enteen hundred dwellings, with a population of about seven thousand 
(the total number of inhabitants in St. Kitt's is in the neighborhood 




The Beach at Basseterre. 



of twenty-nine thousand). In 
this town are Government 

House and other public buildings, and several churches, one of which, 
at least, makes good a claim to be considered architecturally handsome. 
Previous to the year 1866 the two Houses of Legislation which regu- 
lated the public business of St. Kitt's met at Basseterre when called to- 
gether by the executive. From that year down to 1878 the functions 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 45 

of the two houses, which were then abolished, were exercised by a single 
chamber composed of three Crown officials — seven members appointed 
by the Crown and ten elected by the rate-payers. Since 1878 St. 
Christopher has been a Crown colony, and is governed by all the laws 
and regulations in such cases made and provided. The foreign com- 
merce of St. Kitt's, which is chiefly carried on iu Basseterre, consists of 
imports from Great Britain and the United States, and the export of 
rum, molasses, and sugar — mainly to the mother country. 

The people of St. Kitt's are spoken of as Kittefonians and are, as 
well they may be, very proud of their island, of its scenery, and its 
wonderful fertility. 

Although Basseterre is a large town, but few of the houses are 
well or substantially built ; indeed, most of the dwellings are construct- 
ed of wood, and those occupied by the negroes deserve no other de- 
scription than to be accounted as miserable shanties. A few of the bet- 
ter class of habitations are built of «a grayish stone or of rough masonry 
covered with white plaster and roofed with old-fashioned red tiles that 
contrast pleasantly in color with the rich-green foliage of the palms 
and stately trees growing in gardens and along the streets. The prin- 
cipal warehouses of Basseterre stand close to the beach, following its 
curve, facing the breakers that crumble into a foam a stone's throw 
from their front doors. Along the broad street, or levee, the Barra- 
coota's passengers held their way in search of the office of the agent 
of the Atlantic & West India Steam-ship Company. We had been 
invited to call there and make it our headquarters while in town. 
The scene presented on the beach was interesting and well worthy the 
attention of even the most listless and chronically bored traveller in 
our party. Seaward of the high surf, many fishing-boats and lighters 
rode at anchor ; others, drawn high up on the sands, evidently newly 
come to land, attracted around them motley crowds of negroes who 
were bargaining with the fishermen for the catch of the previous 
night. Gangs of longshoremen, lazily loading or unloading lighters 
and other small craft of various kinds, paused in their work to stare at 



46 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

us and comment, in by no means inaudible tones, upon our appearance, 
which they evidently found novel and outlandish. Hundreds of hogs- 
heads of sugar, molasses, and rum lay along the strand, brought there 
in drays and carts of various nondescript patterns, all drawn by 
wretched-looking horses or the meekest of half-starved mules. The 
scene was one of activity and bustle, confusion worse confounded by 
the shouting and noise of many discordant voices — for the darkies 
rejoice in hearing themselves talk, and call every man to his fellow. 

Some of the dwelling-houses of Basseterre stand in the midst of 
gardens shut in from view by high, unsightly stone walls, most inhos- 
pitable and bare-looking. This renders the town less attractive in 
appearance than it otherwise well might be. There can be no logical 
reason for this waste of stone and mortar. It seems selfish and inex- 
cusably exclusive to wall in such wonderful gardens, and for no appar- 
ent good reason but a desire to wall out the passers-by. Such, how- 
ever, is the custom in parts of Great Britain, and the custom is 
provokingly imitated in many West Indian towns by those most hos- 
pitable people in the world, the British West Indians. While walk- 
ing along the streets of Basseterre, one is constantly tempted to ask the 
passers-by for a hoost to enable one to get a short, if it be only a short, 
peep at the shrubs, ferns, and flowers in the gardens. The palms rear 
their graceful crowns high overhead ; mango, tamarind, ceiba, and 
endless varieties of wide-spreading trees lift their branches above the 
enclosures ; the broad leaves of bananas and plantains wave like ban- 
ners in the air ; here and there flamboyant trees in full bloom, covered 
with magenta blossoms, present a startling contrast to the net-work 
of green foliage that surrounds them. These truly magnificent trees 
are to be seen everywhere at this time of the year, bearing glowing 
masses of flowers in color resembling those of the rhododendron. 

Through gate- ways, sometimes through spaces left by falling walls, 
one can catch occasional glimpses of fruits and flowers, of ferns in be- 
wildering and beautiful variety, roses and lilies, rare plants to be seen 
only in the greenhouses of grand domains or public gardens at the 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 



47 



North, cactuses and orchids, delicate creepers and vines clinging in fes- 
toons to trunk and branch, beautifying the trees they are slowly but 
surely killing. Some of the more hoar and venerable trees around 
which the vines seem to cling most fondly, as lissome Yivian clung to 




An Old Gate-way. 

Merlin of old, are covered from root to the farthest end of their 
spreading boughs with parasites and air-plants. It would seem that 
even this teeming, hospitable soil could not make room for all the 
growing things that the fostering air nourishes and fondles into life 
and reproductive growth, for the sides of the houses are covered with 



48 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

vines and creepers, and wherever there may be found a morsel of 
earth, on roof or top of wall, in crack or crevice, large enough to give 
the most delicate tendril or root the feeblest support, there will some 
tender, graceful, living green thing be found, rejoicing in the sunlight, 
in dew and rain. 

In the midst of Basseterre there is a public garden, most tastefully 
laid out with beds of flowers and variegated shrubs. It is a pleasant, 
shady spot, where idle darkies congregate to gossip and children love 
to play. Placed at regular intervals in rows along the walks are great 
palm-trees, their column-like trunks perfectly smooth and round, re- 
sembling unpolished pillars of gray New Hampshire granite. These 
palms were the first I had ever seen growing in the open air. I could 
hear the wind rustle amid their branches, I could stand — yes, actually 
did stand — in their grateful, cooling shade. Then, for the first time, 
I realized that I had reached the tropics— had left the land of maple, 
elm, and hemlock far beyond the sea. 

A road runs from Basseterre in a southeasterly direction, climbs a 
gentle ascent to the crest of the island, where the Atlantic is to be 
seen stretching away as far as the eye can reach ; thence the highway 
gradually descends to the windward shore, trending toward the north, 
continuing along the east coast of St. Ivitt's, with the ocean on one 
hand and the land sweeping upward toward the forests and the moun- 
tains on the other, and so, completing the circuit of the island, re-enters 
Basseterre from the north on the western or leeward shore. 

Nothing can exceed in loveliness and grandeur a view I had from 
the top of a knoll a short distance from this highway. I stood in the 
midst of a great sugar-plantation, looking out upon a plain dotted with 
dark, cool groves and gardens of orange-trees and flowering shrubs. 
Picturesque farm-houses and negro-cabins, half-hidden beneath the 
shade of palms and evergreen trees, stood near the main road, or were 
approached through lanes walled in by hedges of prickly-pear and 
tangled rows of bushes, all overgrown by creepers and clusters of 
vines. From the midst of them, here and there, the aloe shot up its 




AN AVENUE OP COCOA-PALMS. 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 



49 




A Relic of the Good Old Times. 



May-pole, crowned with flowers. Among groves of mangoes and 
tamarinds I could see from afar gorgeous masses of crimson, flamboy- 
ant blossoms, while in the open fields trees as large as giant oaks 
4 



50 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

spread out boughs covered with yellow blossoms to shelter lazy cattle 
from the heat of the sun. Ruined windmills stood on the tops of the 
highest knolls, where they were most exposed to the sweep of the 
trade- wind that, once upon a time, long ago, set their mighty arms 
whirling light merrily. These windmills were veritable giants in the 
good old slavery days, before steam-power, when sugar-estates paid 
their lucky owners princely incomes, instead of only beggarly interest 
on capital as is the case nowadays; for in the days of windmills and 
slavery the planter, according to all accounts, was a nabob, and every 
sugar-estate on the fertile island was a gold-mine. Steam, free labor, 
and beetroot-sugar have changed all that. The windmills, no longer 
used except in out-of-the-world places, beyond the reach of levelling 
enterprise and matter-of-fact steam-power, are falling into ruin, and, 
like the castles of feudalism after the invention of gunpowder, are 
now but picturesque refuges for bats and owls. Their work is done 
by newfangled engines, housed in ugly sheds with awkward, straight 
up and down chimneys, built of dirty-red brick, or worse, rusty iron 
stacks, continually vomiting clouds of filthy smoke. The old mills 
were well built and hurricane-proof, their lower parts of stone, the 
upper stories of heavy joiner- work. The great sails have rotted and 
fallen from many of them, leaving only the towers standing, and these 
are all overgrown with vines, mosses, cactuses, and parasitic plants. 

From where I stood I could see, on one side of the island, Basse- 
terre and its quiet harbor, the refuge of many vessels ; on the other, a 
long line of white breakers rolled in from the ocean, to fall in glisten- 
ing foam upon a beach lined by rows of willows, cotton-wood, and 
manchineel-trees, fringing the edges of the plantations. I looked 
across the meadow-land, where, beyond rugged cliffs, at the southern 
point of St. Kitt's, across a narrow strait, glimmering in the sun- 
light like frosted silver, Nevis swept grandly upward from the Atlan- 
tic into the dazzling clouds ever sleeping around the top of its great 
pyramid, hiding it from mortal sight day after day throughout the 
never-ending summer. 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 



51 



Continuing onward for a mile from where I had paused to enjoy 
this delectable view, I came to a place where, near the road, and be- 
tween it and the shore, were several large salt-pans, the bottoms of 
which, lying lower than high-water mark, were easily covered with 
sea-water, to be evaporated, leaving the salt, which is carefully scraped 
together in piles, and then taken away to be shipped, or for use in 
home consumption. In this way, from the various salt-pans in the 
island there are gathered annually between twelve and fifteen thousand 
barrels of pure sea-salt. After sitting for half an hour in the shadow 







Old Well— St. Kitt's. 



of a grove of palms, enjoying the delicious breeze and admiring a 
prospect of which I remember thinking at the time I should never 
tire, wishing I were the fortunate owner of a villa built on that charm- 
ing spot, I returned unwillingly and slowly to Basseterre, casting many 
lingering looks behind. 

The town seemed dusty and stifling after the fresh air of the hills ; 
therefore the suggestion made by an Antiguan who had sailed with us 
from New York, bound to his own island, where we were to touch 
after leaving St. Kitt's, to wit : " Let's have a hair-cut and a sham- 
poo," jumped with my inclination, especially as my friend assured 



52 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

me that until I had been " properly doctored by the barber of Basse- 
terre " (who is, be it said, as well known to voyagers among the Carib- 
bean Islands as is the " Barber of Seville " to opera-goers, or the Floren- 
tine barber to the readers of " Romola) " I had no satisfactory reasons 
or valid pretext for pretending that I had ever been artistically dealt 
with from a correct tonsorial point of view. The barber of Basse- 
terre (who, by the way, followed the sea and his profession for many 
years on board H. M. S. Niobe, the flagship of the British Navy on 
the West Indian station) is also a gatherer and circulator of news, a 
man of opinions, and possessed of the courage of the same, and is 
much sought after by those who wish to keep themselves au courant 
of Kittefonian affairs. For these reasons, when I took my seat in his 
chair, I felt as if I had been invited by one of the old masters to sit 
for my portrait. Taking heart of grace, I committed myself into his 
care and keeping, feeling well assured that in the hands of a master 
workman not a hair of my head would take any harm. When I had 
received the finishing touches, and was loosed from the drapery in 
which I had been enveloped like a statue previous to the ceremonies 
attending its unveiling, I was perfumed, puffed, and powdered, so fresh 
and rosy-looking as to resemble a highly colored fashion-plate present- 
ment of my former unadorned self. I was afraid to smile lest I should 
muss my hair, or perchance unwittingly disturb the exceedingly nice, 
but, I must say, somewhat conventional and " slick," arrangement of 
my beard and mustache. 

I returned to the Barracouta about noon to luncheon ; others of 
the party remained on shore, sojourning during the heat of the day at 
a hotel of which they afterward gave a most favorable account, saying 
that its larder was well stocked with toothsome kickshaws, that in 
particular there was a most meritorious pepper-pot ; but each and all 
of them dwelt with enthusiastic emphasis on the skill displayed by 
Boniface in swizzling swizzles with his swizzle-stick. What a pepper- 
pot is, and, more particularly, what a swizzle is, how and of what in- 
gredients compounded, why so called, with what ceremonies and ob- 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 53 

servances it is mingled and set up, will be made known hereafter with 
particular care, all in its proper place in my narrative. 

After a siesta on board I returned to land, with a numerous addi- 
tion to the contingent I had left ashore lingering over their swizzles at 
the inn, and proceeded with them to the office of the consignee of the 
Barracouta, where we were put into carriages and driven to the house 
of the owner of one of the most extensive sugar-plantations on the 
island. The hospitable mansion stands on the mountain-side, overlook- 
ing the town, in the midst of pleasure-grounds laid out, generations 
ago, by the ancestors of the present possessor, in terraces, parterres, 
shrubberies, and beds of flowers and ferns. Nearly every plant or 
tree indigenous to the West Indies was here to be seen, rare exotics, 
rare to us children of the North ; tropical plants, all growing to per- 
fection in marvellous, not to say bewildering, luxuriance. 

" In the open air, just think of it ! " exclaimed one of the visitors 
who, like myself, failed to realize -that in seven days from midwinter 
we had arrived in midsummer — that we, in reality and in very truth, 
lived and breathed in the tropics. I could hardly persuade myself of 
the fact that at no time of the year was it necessary to transplant the 
treasures and curiosities of this garden, by which we were surrounded, 
into pots and hot-house tubs, with the intent to store them away under 
glass until winter had come and gone. The garden, which was several 
acres in extent, contained a bewildering variety of trees, flowers, vines, 
exquisite ferns, orchids, and delicate plants. Such a horticultural dis- 
play, within ten miles of New York or Boston, would so greatly pro- 
mote local travel, attract crowds of sightseers, it would be well worth 
the trouble of even the least accommodating railroad company to run 
excursion trains to and from the exhibition half-hourly every pleasant 
day during the short season the show might flourish and retain its 
beauty in our northern climate, from the time — 



our spring gets everythin' in tune, 

An' gives one leap from April into June 



54 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

until the maples hang out the first red cautionary signals foretelling 
frost and foul weather. One night of frost, such as with us would 
serve to strike down the morning-glories and dahlias, or cause the 
shining golden-rods to bronze and wither away, would utterly destroy 
every growing thing in this West Indian garden, every palm and 
vine, all the fruits and flowers that here, all the year round, show so 
rich and luxuriant. 

We remained with our new-found friends, wandering about their 
estate, enjoying every moment of our stay, until after five o'clock tea 
was served ; then, just before sunset, started down the mountain-side, 
and after a drive of a mile reached the landing-place, were ferried off 
to our floating hotel, and reported our return to the officer in charge of 
the Barracouta. 

During the evening our ship's company received a numerous and 
notable addition, in the persons of certain delegates from Antigua, 
Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Barbados, who had been to St. 
Kitt's to attend a convention at which the commercial relations of the 
Caribbean Islands with the United States were in part the subject of 
discussion, as I was informed by one of the gentlemen who had repre- 
sented his island in this Caribbean parliament. These members of 
Her Majesty's Government arrived on board singly and in groups, 
some of them accompanied by their wives and daughters ; when all 
had come, the Barracouta could afford barely enough accommodation 
for all our guests. I say our guests, for, be it remembered, I have ex- 
plained how we regular Barracoutans — the through passengers — looked 
upon the ship as our private steam-yacht ; and so, having thus put our- 
selves in the place of hosts, were bound by all the laws of hospitality 
to entertain all visitors whomsoever in a manner becoming their rank 
and dignity. We found the new arrivals to be an uncommonly inter- 
esting, entertaining, and jolly lot of people, disposed to be heartily 
satisfied with everything and everybody ; therefore, bearing in grate- 
ful remembrance the almost embarrassing hospitality with which the 
Kittefonians had greeted us, we bestirred ourselves in the vain attempt 



RAMBLES IN ST. KITT'S. 55 

to do unto these West Indians even as their countrymen had done 
unto us. We got on famously with our newly found friends, and be- 
fore bedtime each one of our party had received numerous invitations 
to lunch, to dine, to drive, to stop a night, make ourselves at home 
when we arrived at islands yet in store for us — islands of which some 
of us had, I fear, as indefinite ideas as Columbus had when he first dis- 
covered this Caribbean Archipelago, four centuries ago. With such 
tropical rapidity and spontaneity did the bud of acquaintance blossom, 
bloom, and ripen unto the full flower and fruit of good-fellowship, that 
before bedtime I found myself exchanging confidences on terms of 
delightful familiarity with new old friends, whose flattering invita- 
tions I had accepted, whose names I may have heard mentioned when 
introduced to them (to some I was not formally presented), but whose 
faces I had as } 7 et dimly seen by the unsatisfactory glimmer of an oc- 
casional match or by the glow of pipe or cigar as we smoked in the 
dark out on deck. 

At nine o'clock a gun was fired to recall those passengers who had 
again lingered during the latter part of the afternoon and the early 
evening on shore, enticed by swizzle or other forms of hospital- 
ity. At ten the Barracouta, getting under weigh, sailed southward, 
keeping close to the leeward coast of St. Kitt's ; then, crossing the 
narrow channel between that island and Nevis, skirted the south- 
western coast of that island and at midnight came to the open sea. 
Presently turning to the east, the ship steamed leisurely all night 
toward the light-house at the entrance of the harbor of St. John's, 
Antigua, where, after a run of sixty miles from Basseterre, she was to 
cast anchor in the morning. 



CHAPTER V. 

ANTIGUA. 

A Tropical Sunrise. — Antigua. — The Harbor of St. John's. — General Description of the 
Island. — A Derelict Bark. — Scenes on Landing. — A View from an Old Church-yard. 
— Lizards Great and Small. — West Indian Entertainers. — A Momma; Drive. 




SUXRISE the morning after -we left 
St. Christopher, Antigua was in 
sight eight or ten miles to the east- 
ward directly ahead of the Barra- 
couta. At that distance the island 
appears barren and desolate, but as 
we approached the land we discov- 
ered many dwellings, and a wide 
expanse of cultivated laud rising in 
gentle undulations backward from an almost unbroken rampart of 
cliffs that confront the sea. Here and there, at widely separated inter- 
vals, the waves have battered breaches in this sea-wall ; through them 
entrance is gained to quiet anchorages. In a few places on the coast 
the meadows gradually slope downward to a shelving beach from 
which sandspits extend great distances into the ocean, rendering navi- 
gation dangerous to sailors who have not studied their island-charts. 

In these latitudes day comes unheralded by dawn, as night is un- 
preceded by the gloaming. The transition from darkness to sunlight 
is almost instantaneous. Light clouds drifting high overhead catch 
the first rays of the coming sun ; they glow and change from gray and 
brown to dull red, then brightening, gleam brilliant crimson or daz- 



ANTIGUA. 57 

zling orange ; their reflections tinge the mountain-tops. The evanes- 
cent colors fade as the sun lifts above the horizon ; the clouds shine a 
glistening, snowy white. Day has come ! Day is everywhere ! Not 
alone over there in the east. Oh, sleepy-head from far up North, turn 
round and see ; even in the west it is broad daylight ! In very truth, 
unless the " f owlis " in the tropics " slepen alle night with open eye " 
morning must often surprise them ere they have had time to pipe a 
note. So was it that morning we first beheld the blessed land of 
Santa Maria de la Antigua. One moment lying in shadow beneath the 
stars, then it put on all the tints and colors of meadow and valley, of 
coming harvest, of palms and fruit-trees. 

The Caribbees, in respect of the characteristic features of their 
physical geography, may be divided into two distinct classes — the 
mountainous islands and the islands of low and undulating surface. 
To the former class belong St. Christopher and Nevis, with their grand 
summits soaring heavenward — indeed, I may say all the Caribbean 
Islands save and excepting four ; namely, Anguilla, Barbuda, Antigua, 
and Barbados are either isolated lofty peaks (such as Nevis) or, as in 
the case of St. Ivitt's, clusters of crags and pinnacles rising high above the 
sea-level. The four islands I have named above are not of volcanic 
origin, as are all the rest of the group. They are of coral formation, 
according to some geologists ; others, however, dispute this theory. 
Who shall decide the question when learned doctors disagree ? Certes 
not I, who know naught of their science beyond the fact that these 
wise men are unable to arrive at one mind whether our pleasant world 
was made in six days or took as many millions of ages in the building. 
Be all this as it may, the surfaces of the four islands are comparatively 
low, undulating, prairie-like ; while all the other Caribbees overlook 
the ocean, abounding in precipices and steep acclivities, rent by gloomy 
chasms, divided by valleys ; most of them hiding their tops in cloud- 
land, whence they draw down superabundant moisture that might well 
be spared to refresh the sunny, parching plains of Antigua and islands 
resembling it in outlines and rolling plains. 



58 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

Antigua is in longitude 61° 45' W., latitude 17° 6' N. In shape 
it is an irregular oval, thirteen and one-half miles from east to west, a 
little over nine miles from north to south, and has an area of about 
sixty-nine thousand acres. As compared with the mountainous islands 
lying to the south and west of it, the surface of this Caribbee is of 
moderate elevation. Boggy Peak, the highest of the Sheckerly Moun- 
tains, rising in the southwest, is only thirteen hundred and forty feet 
in height. From the southwest the face of the country ascends grad- 
ually to the summit of this prominent landmark, thence it falls sea- 
ward in some places very abruptly, dips beneath tide- water ; lifts again, 
forming dangerous reefs and shoal places far beyond the shore. In 
the mountainous part of Antigua the soil is poor and starved, and 
but little tilled ; in all other regions the land is very productive, and, 
notwithstanding it suffers at times severely from drought, yields ex- 
ceedingly large crops to reward a very industrious and energetic race 
of planters. The inhabitants of Antigua number not far from thirty- 
five thousand souls, of whom about two thousand three hundred are 
whites. 

Passing Sandy Island light-house, at the entrance to the harbor of 
St. John's, the Barracouta came to anchor in a roadstead where she 
made one of a fleet of many vessels, flying flags of all nations, all save 
the Stars and Stripes, which in these later years has all but disap- 
peared from the harbors of the world. From our anchorage, half 
a mile or so from the land, we had an extended view of the western 
slope of the island, from the crest of its water-shed down to the ocean 
on its leeward side. In general appearance Antigua reminded me of 
the shores of Martha's Vineyard in summer-time ; the harbor of 
St. John's, in particular, suggesting Vineyard Haven in many ways, so 
that the scenery had a familiar look, at least so long as we remained at 
such a distance as prevented our distinguishing between the foliage of 
tropical trees, forever green, and those that shed their leaves in chill 
October. Antigua was long ago entirely denuded of primeval forests ; 
indeed, there are but few trees growing upon the hill-side or in the bot- 



ANTIGUA. 59 

tom-lands. Nevertheless, the heart of the island is exceedingly fertile ; 
there verdant meadows and savannahs alternate with cultivated cane- 
pieces. The coast is indented by shallow coves and land-locked bays 
into which, in the rainy season, a few short-lived creeks and rivulets 
empty sluggish currents. In the dry season the beds of these water- 
courses bake and harden in the heat of the sun and all the country 
withers to a russet brown, for the atmosphere of Antigua, by compar- 
ison with that of some of the other islands, is hot and parching. For 
all that, it is by no means the dry-as-dust place, where the earth re- 
fuses to yield water for the use of man, that by some ill-informed 
travellers it is said to be. The annual rainfall is forty-five inches, but 
in unusually hot seasons it has been known to decrease to less than 
twenty-six inches. If compared with the neighboring island of Dom- 
inica, where the fountains of the great deep are in a continual state of 
disruption, pouring down no less than two hundred and eight inches of 
rain in a twelvemonth, Antigua is indeed a thirsty land. Its name in 
the Spanish tongue, we are informed by Wynne in his chronicle, sig- 
nifies " a place without water," but other historians assert that when the 
island was discovered, in the year 1493, by Christopher Columbus the 
few Caribs settled there called it Xamaca, " a land of springs." Other 
authorities point out that Xamaca means a place of forests, and by 
that name Jamaica was known in old times. This we may well believe, 
seeing that Jamaica is a veritable "land of forest and of flood." It is 
therefore probable that in some way a confusion has arisen as to the 
ancient names of the two islands, and through all the changing years 
the Carib name of the lesser island has been forgotten never to be 
recalled. 

When we visited Antigua, at the end of an unusually long dry 
season, when prayers for rain were being offered up in the churches, 
we found the vegetation moderately green, with only here and there a 
hill-top or steep slope showing brown and scorched. We could easily 
imagine, what is beyond doubt a fact, that at all times of the year An- 
tigua is picturesque, wanting, it is true, in the grandeur so characteris- 



60 



J) OWN THE ISLANDS. 



tic of the scenery of St. Kitt's or Nevis. Nevertheless, this island pos- 
sesses a beauty of its own, which feasts the eye and satisfies the mind. 
I do not choose to render the judgment of Paris concerning the com- 
parative beauty of the many lovely Caribbean islands we visited dur- 
ing our voyage ; they are all beautiful, differing each one from the 
other only as one star differeth from another in glory ; or, to borrow 
an unpoetical illustration from a member of our own party, who, when 

pressed to decide the question, was 
reminded of the old Kentuckian who, 
in the " shanks of the evening," was 
wont to maintain there was no such 
thing as lad Kentucky whiskey, ad- 
mitting with extreme reluctance, even 
in the early-sermons and soda-water 
period of the day after, that it might 
be possible some Kentucky whiskey 
was better than others. 

Shortly after the Barraoouta drop- 
ped anchor in the harbor of St. John's, 
as has been already related, she was 
surrounded, as at St. Christopher the 
day before, by a fleet of bumboats 
containing fruit-sellers and hucksters 
— all yelling at the top of their voices 
whenever a possible customer appeared at the side of the ship. The 
inevitable washerwoman also proclaimed her presence, lifting up her 
voice in shrillest treble, as clearly and distinctly audible as fife-notes 
heard above the din of battle. Those of the passengers who were 
ready to go ashore took passage in a well-appointed steam-launch, 
thereby exciting the ill-concealed disgust of the darkies, who looked 
upon this recently established competition as an unwarrantable inva- 
sion of their ancient monopoly as ferrymen. 

A shallow bar, separating the inner from the outer harbor of St. 




Fruit-seller — Antigua. 



ANTIGUA. 61 

John's, renders the approach to the former both difficult and danger- 
ous, as witness the fact — a large bark, in trying to beat up the nar- 
row channel a few days before our arrival, had gone hard aground on 
the sand, where we saw her heeled over, the water rising to her hatch- 
combings, slowly breaking up, not worth the price of the nails in her 
timbers. 

On the south side of the entrance to the inner harbor the ruins of 
an old fort stand on an eminence commanding the fair-way ; opposite, 
on the north, St. James' Fort crowns the summit of a promontory 
connected with the mainland by a narrow causeway. We landed at a 
quay of well-joined masonry, in the presence of a crowd of blacks 
who evidently took stock of us, " sizing us up," no doubt, with the de- 
sign of engaging us in pecuniary transactions more or less connected 
with fruit, then and there, or later in the day, as opportunity might 
offer. Everywhere were fruit-sellers, with shallow wooden trays bal- 
anced on their heads, venders of knick-knacks, cheap jewellery, and 
divers glittering gewgaws such as find favor in the sight of our colored 
sisters ; for the negresses of Antigua, after the manner of their kind 
in other lands, delight in the unlimited quantity rather than in the 
precious quality of their personal adornment. Doubtless these bejew- 
elled ladies of color would (if they had ever heard of her) honor the 
memory of Tarpeia, if, indeed, they did not positively envy her fate, 
esteeming her a favored person of quality who died, as all ladies mov- 
ing in the best circles of colored society in Antigua would be glad to 
die, crushed beneath the weight of an unlimited assortment of precious 
gifts. 

The city of St. John's is laid out four-square ; the houses are 
for the most part built of wood, the most serviceable and lasting ma- 
terial in this unstable place. Antigua is subject to frequent earth- 
quakes ; therefore the buildings are seldom constructed more than two 
stories in height. Those of the better class are commodious, are 
usually painted white, with jalousies or Venetian blinds, and have 
broad verandas on the lower stories ; above these are covered galleries, 



62 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

into which the windows of the second stories open. I speak of the 
very few houses of the very few well-to-do whites. The negro-quar- 
ters are miserable shanties, filthy, unwholesome, badly built, ready to 
fall to pieces or to be blown away by the first hurricane — in fact, many 
of them, already collapsed, were little better than cow-sheds in appear- 
ance. Some of the better class of dwellings are surrounded by trees, 
shrubs, exquisite ferns, and wonderful treasures of flowers and grace- 
ful growing things. We saw several built like Swiss cottages, of stone 
to the top of the first story, and above that of wood ; they had their 
kitchens detached from the living-rooms — a very desirable arrangement 
in that hot climate, as it serves to keep the heat and smell of cooking 
out of the sleeping-apartments. 

After rambling for a time about the streets we climbed to the top 
of a hill, back of the town, to the old church of St. John's (built in 
the year 1793), which stands in the midst of a God's acre, a veritable 
Golgotha, crowded with the graves of generation after generation of 
Antigonians, many of the sepulchres marked with curious tombstones, 
inscribed with quaint and, in several instances, really laughable epi- 
taphs, all of which, had time served, I was minded to copy. From the 
church-yard we had a grand view of at least half of the island. Far to 
the east, over fertile plantation, and away toward the north, beyond 
rugged hills and moorland, we could see distant villages and hamlets. 
We could follow with the eye, broad, smooth roads, leading to the set- 
tlements, through valleys, over braes, across thousands of acres of cane- 
pieces. 

Everywhere sugar-cane ! Nothing but sugar-cane ! Why should 
anyone expect to see any other crop ? Why should the planters of 
Antigua, or, for that matter, any of the planters in the West Indies, 
waste labor and time in planting grain ? Why, indeed ? Has not 
the president of one of the greatest railroads in the Western part 
of the United States, who visited the Caribbees in the Barracouta 
on the trip preceding mine, after carefully calculating the relative 
value of a crop of corn and a crop of sugar, announced that an acre 



ANTIGUA. 63 

of cane will produce ten times as much, in marketable value, as the 
same acre planted with maize? That may be, Mr. Kailroad Pres- 
ident, but why is it that within the memory of men still living — yes, 
of youths still at school — the land along the line of your railroad has 
increased ten, twenty, in some places one hundred-fold, while sugar- 
estates in the West Indies may be purchased (so I am credibly in- 
formed) for prices not exceeding the value of the growing crops, and, 
even at that low rate, turn out to be ruinous bargains to the purchaser ? 
Current rumor has it that all, or nearly all, the sugar-estates in the 
British West Indies are heavily mortgaged ; it is asserted on all sides 
that a forced sale of any of them would fail to realize a sum equal to 
five years' interest on the mortgages wherewith they are encumbered. 
These statements I make guardedly, and wish them to be accepted as 
testimony offered by many people of the Caribbees with whom I had 
conversation on the subject. I must admit that during my visit the 
state of trade was very depressed, the commercial outlook gloomy — 
not to say disheartening — so that probably my informants may have 
taken an unreasonably hopeless view of the condition of affairs. I 
hope so, with all my heart. From all that I have been able to learn 
during the time that has elapsed since I returned from my trip down 
the islands, the worst forebodings of the planters and merchants have 
had a sad fulfilment. 

But there is better and more profitable employment in Antigua 
than meditation among the tombs, as we discovered, to our great de- 
light, when we returned to the town and were presently taken to 
breakfast by hospitable people who, in the goodness of their hearts, 
put themselves to no end of trouble to render our stay at St. John's 
agreeable. After a drive of less than half a mile from the landing- 
place we arrived at the shore of the inner harbor at a place where a 
narrow causeway connects the mainland with the islet or promontory 
on the north side of the bay, upon the summit of which, as I have al- 
ready set forth, stands St. James' Fort. 

Passing through a wide arched gateway, we entered the lovely 



64 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

pleasure-grounds of our entertainers, and found ourselves in a garden 
laid out in lawns and walks, where the shrubbery, flowers, and grass 
were kept delightful^ green by frequent sprinkling of water drawn 
from a fountain playing beneath palm-trees. 

Humming-birds darted from flower to flower — delicate little creat- 
ures, glistening like jewels in the sunlight — gaudy insects wmeeled 
their droning flight among the vines, clumsy beetles and awkward 
bugs of frightful aspect, overweighted by shining coats of mail, 
lumbered about the paths, trying to hide in crevices or under stones. 
Lizards as long as your hand sat watching us, listening (as only liz- 







Common Garden-lizard. 



ards are said to listen) as if they could really hear the flowers grow 
and the gnomes talking underground. When frightened they scam- 
pered away as lively as rabbits, disappearing with the bewildering 
agility of prairie-dogs. At first one regards these harmless creat- 
ures with repugnance, but the feeling soon wears away when one of 
them is seen engaged in the steady occupation of lizard life — fly -catch- 
ing ; you cannot help admiring his sprightly movement and graceful 
play, never again thinking of doing harm to this faithful ally of man 
in his warfare, relentlessly waged, against that pest, the common house- 
fly. I have watched a lizard steal gently up the steps, cross a veranda, 
pause for a moment upon a threshold or window-sill, trying to hear if 
the family were at home, then venture boldly into a room to pounce 



ANTIGUA. 65 

upon an unsuspecting fly, drunk with repeated heel-taps or gorged 
with stolen sweets ; this done, in a twinkling dart out of doors, bear- 
ing off in triumph the astonished victim, in search of which his liz- 
ardship had ventured so far and dared so much. Near the houses, 
in the gardens, one sees small lizards only ; but in the meadows and 
cane-pieces, and on the roads, larger specimens scat across the open or 
scamper among the thickest undergrowth. The iguana, the giant liz- 
ard (to be found in all the Caribbean islands) is a disgusting, repulsive 
reptile, gnarled and knotted with wart-like excrescences of exceedingly 
grewsome and gouty appearance. It frequently attains a length of two 
or three feet, is sluggish and ungainly in its movements, and although 
I was assured of its harmless disposition my curiosity to study its for- 
bidding make-up never once tempted me within reach of its villanous- 
looking tail and preposterous jaws. At Trinidad I had a portion of 
one to eat, and I said I liked it — politeness seemed to demand that 
much of my gentility — and I did not positively dislike it, but it made 
me shudder to think what it was, or rather had been, in a raw state and 
when alive. The flesh tasted somewhat like veal ; that is, I thought 
the little bit I tried to eat tasted like veal. A second bite might 
have undeceived me, but I preferred to live in doubtful joy rather 
than solve the question at the risk of being obliged to leave the 
table. 

From this lovely garden we went into the house to breakfast ; we 
were entertained with true West Indian hospitality, enjoying the good 
things, all and sundry, set before us with a zest and relish begotten 
of fasting (except in the matter of fruit) from sunrise until the fore- 
noon was wellnigh spent. 

After breakfast, accompanied by our hostess, we were driven to 
the plantation of one of the members of the Executive Council of the 
Governor of Antigua, whose residence is on the road to English Har- 
bor, the principal town on the south coast of the island. We passed 
through a lovely country, a land of farms, cultivated to perfection, pro- 
ductive of a surprising growth of sugar-cane, and doubtless favorable 



66 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

to the growing of cotton and many other tropical staples. Although 
we looked for other crops we saw nothing but cane, everywhere mo- 
nopolizing the care and attention of the husbandmen over all this fertile 
Caribbee. On the hill-tops, in the bottom-lands, along the banks of 
creeks at this season dry and waterless, by the edges of ponds where 
cattle went to drink, there grew a few full-branched forest-trees and 
tall palms. By the wayside, hedgerows of prickly-pears and impene- 
trable shrubbery, overgrown by lilac jasmine, hemmed in the mead- 
ows and cane-pieces. Conspicuous among all other plants, the May- 
pole aloe shot up twenty or thirty feet, bearing aloft a yellow crown 
of blossoms. 

At intervals along the road we passed darkies of every age, of both 
sexes, on their way to or from town, carrying baskets of fruit and 
vegetables ; we heard some of them singing, but as we approached 
they stepped aside to make way for us, and watched us in silence, 
always ready and delighted to return our greetings. Close to some 
of the negro -shanties were little gardens planted with potatoes, yams, 
pea-bushes, arrowroot, and the like. These picturesque hovels, in 
appearance little better than New England chicken-houses, are raised 
a few feet above the ground, and have steps of rough stones or 
logs rising to the doors ; they have no chimneys, for all cooking is 
done in the open air, over charcoal fires, a few handfuls of that fuel 
giving heat sufficient to cook a meal for a whole hungry family. The 
negroes, however, have at no time much to cook ; their customary diet 
consists of yams, cassava bread made into cakes resembling Scotch 
bannocks, occasionally a little salt fish, molasses galore, and in cane- 
time all the sugar-cane procurable by foul means or fair. In cane- 
time, the time of jubilee, the darkies are fat — fat and happy, fat and 
" sassy," fat and lazy. The saying, " As fat as a nigger in cane-time," 
has become proverbial in Antigua, or, for that matter, in all sugar- 
growing countries. 

After driving for an hour we arrived at our destination and found 
our host, whose acquaintance we had made the night before on the 



ANTIGUA. 



67 



voyage from St. Kitt's (we had much reason, as I shall show, to con- 
gratulate ourselves upon having fallen in with him on our travels), 
waiting to receive and introduce us to his family. 




The Salmagundian making ready to Sketch. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 

West Indian Hospitality. — A Sugar Plantation. — Sugar-making. — An Occult Luncheon. 
— Turtle, and again Turtle. — The Public Library. — Historical Notes. — Under Way 
for Islands farther South. 



| E were made welcome at our friend's 
house in a manner that banished 
at once all thought that until that 
day we had been utter strangers to 
our entertainers, and so, without 
ceremony or restraint, were soon 
comfortably settled, some in the 
drawing-room, some on the veran- 
da, pleasantly chatting with new- 
found acquaintances ; say, rather, 
kind-hearted friends, who mani- 
fested a flattering interest in us and 



in our affairs. Kinder-hearted, 
more gracious gentle-folk I never met, no matter where my stages may 
have been, at home or abroad, than the West Indian people. Their 
hospitality is as genial and sunny as their delightful climate ; they 
are generous and very socially inclined, ready to receive all strangers 
heartily. No matter whether their guest hails from neighboring 
islands, from England (the old land that all British Creoles call 
"home"), or from foreign countries, they are tireless in their atten- 
tion to the stranger within their gates. 




A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 69 

After enjoying the cool shade of the house, conversing merrily, 
sundry appropriate and satisfying liquid comforts being meanwhile 
handed round, we were conducted by the proprietor of the estate to 
the sugar-houses, where the machinery for sugar-making and the dis- 
tillation of rum was in full operation. I was much interested in 
watching the darkies at their work. The rags that hung in tatters on 
powerful forms scarcely served to conceal the muscular limbs of the 
men, who exerted their great strength awkwardly, but with right good- 
will.* The women bore their part right manfully, if I may be permit- 
ted the expression, in all the hard work, being evidently unsexed, not 
to say brutalized, by their unwomanly occupation. For this reason, 
doubtless, they appeared to us more degraded and less intelligent 
than their brothers, fathers, sons, and, perhaps, husbands. Never- 
theless, all the groups of laborers, male or female, were picturesque, 
awakening little pity for their raggedness. In such a climate rags 
lose their pathos — they tell no miserable story of chill penury, of pinch- 
ing cold ; the tatters, once as gaudy as cheap dyes could make them, 
now faded and beyond all power of needle and thread to mend them, 
lent a variety of blended coloring to a picture full of sunlight. To 
and fro across the yard girls and women hurried, with great tubs of 
molasses or rum poised upon their heads. All the hands about the 
buildings were in what was, evidently, to them a perfectly congenial 
state of stickiness ; from their matted woolly pates down to the soles 
of their plantigrade feet they were so daubed over and smeared — if 
not literally clothed, at least coated — with a sugary glaze, that each 
darky looked for all the world like a life-sized, animated chocolate 
figure. The workers applied themselves to their task with such infi- 
nite good-nature and hearty good-will that I began seriously to doubt 
the fairness or the justness of the statement one hears so constantly 
reiterated on all sides concerning negro laziness and incapacity for any 
kind of work. 

When we had completed our inspection of the sugar-factory we 
returned to the house, and presently were shown into the dining-room, 



70 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

which, as is generally the case in these islands and elsewhere in the 
region of the trade-winds, was on the windward side of the dwelling. 
Windward — mark the word ! In these islands of unending midsum- 
mer, where ye gather roses not only when ye may but whenever ye 
will, where a hot-house would be as useless as an ice-house at Wrangel 
Land or Lady Franklin Bay — all the good people, forgetful of the 
North Star, take their bearings by the trade-wind, which for nine 
months of twelve blows easterly, varying from northeast to south- 
east. Windward Islanders never speak of the eastern or western 
coast of an island or side of a house, but invariably of the windward or 
leeward coast or side, as the case may be. They also speak of going 
down or up the islands, not of going north or south. In the dining- 
room on the windward side of the house, accordingly, we sat down to 
a sumptuous meal of most tempting appetency, perfectly cooked and 
daintily served ; a banquet consisting of so many novel dishes of in- 
viting or perplexing appearance that the ladies, being first served, were 
in doubt how they had best help themselves, in what quantity, or 
whether the mysterious but tempting morsels were to be treated with 
forks or spoons, with fish-knives or blades of cold steel. All of the 
guests were at a loss to decide whether the component parts of savory 
messes had grown i' the ground, had been born alive, or hatched from 
eggs ; whether or not the cook, in preparing the raw material for the 
table, had been obliged to rid it of withered leaves or claws or feath- 
ers, wash its roots, singe it as sheep's-heads are singed, or scrape off 
scales; nor did we care to inquire too closely. Perhaps, in many 
cases, ignorance was bliss ; in our contentment we thought it folly to 
be wise. In these lands of iguana, groo-groo worms, edible apes and 
wapauderies, the foreign diner-out had best take whatever is set before 
him, asking no questions, as did I, in thankfulness of heart. There 
was one royal dish of which we had all seen many weak imitations and 
mock suggestions — we were all familiar with it, just as the un travelled 
art amateur knows his old masters from having seen more or less 
clever copies and reproductions by various cheap and unsatisfying pro- 



A DAT AT ANTIGUA. 71 

cesses — a giant dish of green-turtle fins and fat, with an abundance of 
delicate morsels all floating in a wonderful sauce, composing a mess the 
like of which was never yet — no, nor ever will be — furnished forth 
within a thousand miles of Guildhall. This dish, fit to set before the 
Lord Mayor, was served liberally and with little ceremony ; in fact, 
with no more pomp and circumstance than would have attended its 
coming had it been an Irish stew or a dish of Boston beans. More- 
over, I noticed that our hostess passed it by, saying she preferred mut- 
ton. Verily, green turtles, like prophets, are not without honor save 
in their own country. 

In such goodly company and with such surroundings, what wonder 
was it that the afternoon was far advanced before we came usque ad 
poma — that is to say, to the pineapples. Ah-h ! those little, black 
Antigua pines — juicier, tenderer and pulpier, more fruity, more fra- 
grant, than any fruit I had ever before tasted. How delicious my ex- 
perience of them ! How tantalizing the craving for their rich flavor, 
their delicate fragrance, that haunts about the memories of my visit to 
Antigua — the garden in which grows this fruit of the Hesperides ! 

After luncheon, coffee was served on the veranda, where we sat for 
half an hour holding high converse with our good host and hostess 
and others of their household. Then we regretfully bade our friends 
good-by, drove back to St. John's, where all the passengers — those who 
had gone merrymaking to the great sugar-estate and those who had 
remained behind — rendezvoused at the landing-place, expecting to find 
a launch waiting for them, but it had steamed out to the Barracouta, 
and so our stay on shore was prolonged for nearly two hours. I made 
use of the spare time profitably at the public library, where I found 
many rare books kept in excellent order, ready to the hand of the 
librarian, an exceedingly courteous and well-informed gentleman, who, 
upon learning who and of what nation I was, also my errand to the 
place, made himself of great use, enabling me to make the most of the 
short time I could spend in examining the treasures of which he was 
the custodian. 



72 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

At all the Caribbean towns I visited I was impressed by the dis- 
covery in each of them, in some convenient location, of a well-appoint- 
ed, well-stocked library of carefully selected books. A short study of 
the catalogues of titles served to show that the volumes had been se- 
lected with unusual discrimination, involving a knowledge of English 
literature by no means of ordinary scope. In all these libraries are to be 
found the best writings of celebrated authors, especially of those writers 
who flourished during the last century and the first half of this. The 
fact that the volumes, although well taken care of, bear evidence of 
continual use, says much for the diligence of the people in the matter 
of seeking after the best sort of knowledge. The public library at 
St. John's is a delightful room — perfectly lighted, quiet, pervaded by 
an air of repose and contemplation — a place where one may lazily turn 
over the pages of the latest novel, or study without being disturbed 
by gossiping visitors or having one's attention distracted by street- 
cries or the rumbling of passing vehicles. There I passed two of the 
pleasantest hours of all the delightful weeks I spent in the "West In- 
dies. I love to turn over the pages of my note-book, for the entries 
then made in it serve to recall to my mind a picture of the well-filled 
shelves, the easy-chairs, and the open windows — giving entrance to the 
soft trade-wind. I need no scratch of pen or pencil to remind me of 
the good-natured librarian, who brought me the right books at the 
right time, opened at the right place, who regretted I could not stay 
longer, and who, when we parted, extended to me the right hand of 
fellowship, saying, in a gentle voice, " I like people who like books." 

The bibliography of the British West Indies includes many histo- 
ries and reports and books of travel ; nearly all of them, however, 
were written before 1834, the date of the manumission of the slaves 
in the English colonies. During the last fifty years but few books 
have been published (if we except the works of Kingsley, Trollope, 
and Ober) that give any connected history of the course of events or 
valuable information concerning the islands since Queen Victoria came 
to the throne. From a worn and tattered blue-book, containing the 



A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 73 

" Accounts of Slave-compensation Claims," printed by the British House 
of Commons in 1838, I made a few notes that may not be uninterest- 
ing. In 1834 slavery was abolished in all the possessions of Great Brit- 
ain. Parliament voted a gross sum, which was distributed among owners 
of slaves as compensation for setting their blacks free. The negroes 
were divided into classes according to the kind of labor for which 
they were fitted, and a value was set upon each class by valuers, sworn 
faithfully to perform their duties. Thus, in Antigua, head-people were 
valued at £144 9s. 8-|d. ; trades-people, £112 ; inferior trades-people, 
£59 ; field-hands, £94 ; inferior field-hands, £31 ; domestics, £82. The 
valuations differed in different islands ; for instance, head-people in 
Jamaica were valued at £78 ; in St. Kitt's, £80 ; in Grenada, £120 ; and 
so on. Children under six years of age on August 1, 1834 (the day set 
for the emancipation of the slaves), were valued at £13 17s. 4d.; aged, 
deceased, or otherwise non-effective adults, at £10 18s. 5^d. By arbi- 
tration the rates of compensation were determined, and, like the valu- 
ations, differed in different islands — head-people being rated as fol- 
lows : In Jamaica, £31 ; in Antigua, £34 ; in St. Kitt's, £80 ; in Gre- 
nada, £41 ; the compensation for other slaves being in proportion. 
The commissioners appointed to carry out the act of Parliament took 
nearly four years to complete their labors. From their final report it 
appears that the total sum expended under the act was £18,669,401 
10s. 7d., leaving contested unpaid claims to the amount of £1,330,- 
598 9s. 5d. The total expense of the commission was £61,147 13s. 2d.; 
that is to say, a little over one-third of one per cent, of the money dis- 
bursed by the commissioners. The Antiguans, to their credit be it said, 
were the first to carry out the provisions of the act of Parliament. As 
I studied the columns of figures of this grand book-account, the record 
of the noblest financial transaction ever negotiated by the men of any 
nation, I could not help indulging a feeling of pride that I was a 
kinsman of the nation of shopkeepers. Just here let me remind my 
countrymen of the fact that will in this connection keep recurring to 
my mind, namely : In 1860 the value of the property in slaves in the 



74 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

United States was estimated, with reasonable accuracy, to be three 
thousand five hundred millions of dollars. In 1864 the Rebellion was 
crushed, the slaves were free, and the United States Government had 
incurred a debt almost precisely equal in amount to the valuation set 
on the total number of slaves held in bondage four years before. It 
has cost much money to rid our race of the disgrace entailed on it by 
the success attending Sir John Hawkins in his first business-venture 
of bringing a cargo of colored men from Africa to work on the planta- 
tions in America. 

The history of Antigua is by no means dry reading, as a few brief 
extracts, copied into my note-book from volumes in the public library 
of St. John's, will show. 

Columbus, having discovered Antigua and given it its name, de- 
serted the island, and nothing is known of it until Antonio Serrano 
failed in an attempt to plant a colony upon it in 1520. From that 
year, except by such Europeans as were cast upon it by the mischance 
of shipwreck, Antigua remained unexplored until Charles I. of Eng- 
land granted it to his unworthy favorite the Earl of Carlisle, who, how- 
ever, set small store upon it, preferring to send out colonists to St. 
Christopher, twenty leagues farther to the east. In 1692, M. D'Es- 
nambuc with a party of French crossed from St. Kitt's, but after a short 
stay in Antigua abandoned it on account of the scarcity of sweet water. 
He was followed by General Sir Thomas Warner, the English Gov- 
ernor of St. Kitt's, who colonized Antigua, or Antego as he called it, in 
1632, and for eight years his settlement prospered. Then the Caribs 
came from Dominica and made great slaughter of the colonists, carry- 
ing off in their retreat many women and children, among them the 
wife and babe of the governor himself. In the days of Cromwell 
the Antiguans refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, until Sir 
George Ayscue forcibly convinced them that, if the Lord Protector 
had not indeed been crowned, he was nevertheless every inch a king. 
After the restoration Charles II. granted the island to Lord Francis 
Willoughby, who perished at sea in a hurricane that wrecked his fleet 



A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 75 

off the coast of Guadeloupe in the year 1665. During the century and 
a half of almost incessant war between England and France, Antigua 
was constantly in danger of attack from the French of Martinique, who 
stirred up the Caribs (as in North America their compatriots stirred up 
the Indians) to hostility against English settlers, so that the latter fre- 
quently found themselves " robbed of the very shoes off their feet." 
It is interesting to Americans to know that among those who assisted 
in defending Antigua during this French and Carib war was a certain 
Captain Samuel Winthrop (or Winthorp, as the name is spelled in the 
old chronicle from which I quote), son of that John Winthrop, of 
Groton Hall, England, who became the first Governor of Massachusetts 
Bay in the year 1629, and a brother of Colonel Stephen Winthrop of 
the Parliamentary Army ; also of that other John Winthrop who 
founded the city of New London in 1661. The year 1674 is a mem- 
orable one in the history of Antigua, for then it was that Colonel Cod- 
rington, of Barbados, took up bis residence on the island and engaged 
in sugar-planting. It was by his enterprise and energy that many 
other planters were induced to do likewise, until, in this way, was es- 
tablished an industry that in after years became the source of great 
wealth and prosperity to all who engaged in it. The natives of Domi- 
nica became so troublesome this same year that Sir William Staple- 
ton, Captain-General of the Leeward Islands, was petitioned by the 
Antiguans to permit them to "kill and destroy the Indians inhabiting 
the island of Dominica." This request having graciously been granted, 
Philip Warner, Governor of Antigua, fitted out an expedition, which 
he led in person, obtaining a signal victory over the savages. 

This Carib war raged for many years and with relentless fury, as 
may well be imagined from the following incident, narrated by Dam- 
pier, the famous freebooter, who visited the Caribbean Archipelago 
many times during his adventurous career. He says : 

" The Caribbees had done some spoil in our English plantation in 
Antigua, and therefore Governor Warner's son, by his wife, took a 
party of men and went to suppress the Indians, and came to a place 



76 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

where his brother Indian Warner lived. Great seeming joy was there 
at their meeting, but how far real the event showed, for the English 
Warner, providing plenty of liquor and inviting his half-brother to be 
merry with him, in the midst of his entertainment ordered his men, 
when a signal was given, to murder him and all his Indians, which 
was accordingly performed. Such perfidious doings as these, besides 
the baseness of them, are a great hinderance of our gaining interest 
among the Indians." 

Philip Warner was tried, it is true, for the murder of his half- 
brother, but, being triumphantly acquitted, had his lands restored to 
him, and was re-established in the honors of the governorship. 

In 1703 a monthly mail-service was started between Antigua, Bar- 
bados, St. Christopher, Nevis, Montserrat, Jamaica, and England. 

It is curious to note the charges that were made for the convey ance 
of letters in those days ; they were as follows : For every letter not ex- 
ceeding one sheet of paper, 9d. ; for two sheets, Is. 6d. ; for every 
packet weighing 1 oz. or under, 2s. 8d. 

In the year 1770, Antigua was visited by Captain Kidd, " As he 
sailed, as he sailed." This gallant tar persuaded the governor to give 
him command of a small sloop of thirty guns, promising in turn to ex- 
terminate (he, of all salt-water highwaymen) the pirates that infested 
these seas in by-gone days. This he did, in his own way, and doubt- 
less to his own entire satisfaction. The people of Antigua, during his 
protectorate, had frequent cause to remember the fable of the Doves 
who invited the Kite to defend them from the Hawk, no doubt puz- 
zling themselves considerably how best to solve the problem, Quis cus- 
todiet custodem ? until Kidd saw fit to depart for the East Indies, as 
he did a year or two afterward, in the thirty-gun sloop, which he forgot 
to restore to the governor. 

In the time of Queen Anne " that abominable and atrocious gov- 
ernor, Daniel Park, arrived to blast for a time with his unhallowed 
breath this beautiful island." This truly remarkable man was a Vir- 
ginian who had committed a murder at a gambling-table, deserted his 



A DAT AT ANTIGUA. 77 

wife, fled to England, purchased an estate, got himself elected to, and 
was promptly expelled from Parliament for bribery. He fled to Hol- 
land, pursued by a captain of the Queen's Guard, whose wife he had 
dishonored, and there volunteered, under the Duke of Marlborough, 
as aide-de-camp. The duke was almost immediately obliged to dis- 
honorably discharge the rascal from the army, and after the Battle of 
Blenheim, to get rid of him, despatched him to England to announce 
the gaining of that famous victory to Queen Anne, sending by the 
hand of Parks the following letter to the Duchess of Marlborough : 

August 13, 1704. 
I have not time to say more, but to beg you will give my Duty to the Queen, 
and let her know her Army has had a glorious Victory. Mon s Tallard and two 
other Generals are in my Coach and I am following the rest. The bearer, my 
Aiede-Oamp C. M. Parkes, will give her and account of what has pass'd. I shal 
doe it in a day or two by a nother more att large. 

Maelbokough. 

To relieve herself in turn of the presence of the busy villain, the 
Queen made pretence of honoring the bearer of good tidings, and ap- 
pointed this precious scoundrel to the Governorship of Antigua, where 
he lost no time in provoking a riot, in which he was killed by a mob, 
who, exasperated by his crimes, literally tore him to pieces in the 
street. 

Before the abolition of slavery Antigua was the scene of several 
negro insurrections, which (with one notable exception, in the year 
1736) were easily suppressed, and, although threatened by foes from 
without, the island has usually enjoyed internal peace. In the year 
1787, Prince William Henry, afterward William IV. of England, 
visited Antigua in the frigate Pegasus. His appearance threw Anti- 
guan society into a fever of loyal enthusiasm. The Solicitor-General 
of the island, in attempting to read an address of welcome, was so 
overawed that he was bereft of speech. The prince during his stay 
impressed the good people of Antigua with a sense of his " gracious 



78 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

majesty of mien and kingly qualities," and the enthusiastic historian 
who chronicles the events of this royal visit becomes recklessly extrava- 
gant in the use of what may well be called truly loyal adjectives, as 
witness the following selection, culled at random from page after page 
of glowing narrative, in which the prince is described as " affable," 
" bluff," " civil," " condescending," " conspicuous," " dignified," 
" frank," " gallant " (with the accent first on one and then on t'other 
syllable), " gracious," " humble," " liberal," " pleasing," " polite," 
" princely," " serene," striking," " urbane," " victorious," with all of 
which the other parts of speech patriotically, enthusiastically, and 
unanimously agree. A greater man than prince or king, who hap- 
pened to follow humbly in the suite of his royal master, receives but 
a passing notice, to wit : 

" Captain Nelson, of the Boreas, accompanied His Royal High- 
ness." 

Antigua, at one time, was compensated for the short plague of 
Parks by the presence of the Eight Honorable Ralph Lord Laving- 
ton, Baron of Lavington, " a very hospitable man and fond of 
splendor. His balls and routs were given upon a scale of the grand- 
est and most impressive magnificence. His hospitality was tempered 
by the regard due to a personage of his importance, and he firmly be- 
lieved in the inferiority in blood, breeding, and mental capacity of the 
black man. He would not, upon any occasion, receive a letter or 
parcel from the fingers of a black or colored man, and, in order to 
guard against such horrible defilement, he had a golden instrument 
wrought, something like a pair of sugar-tongs, in which to hold the 
presented article." 

" He would not allow his blacks to wear shoes or stockings ; his 
footmen used to stand behind his carriage with their naked legs shin- 
ing from the butter with which, by His Excellency's orders, they were 
daily compelled to anoint them." 

The whistle of the steam-launch interrupted my researches into the 
chronicles of Antigua. Bidding good-by to the librarian I hurried to 



A DAY AT ANTIGUA. 



79 



the landing, where I found the little tender waiting for me ; I stepped 
on board, and in twenty minutes was once more on the deck of the 
Barracouta. The captain was on the bridge when we reached the 
steamer, up came the anchor, and in a few moments after our arrival 
" at home," as we called our ship, we were off down the islands, 
bound for Dominica and Martinique. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 

A Sudden Sunset. — A Mysterious Evening. — Sleeping on Deck. — The Ladies' Reserva- 
tion. — The Doctor's Camping-ground. — Morning Ritual. — Fruit and Salt-water 
Baths. — Guadeloupe. — The Saints. — Marie Galante. — Dominica. 

After a stay of twelve hours at Antigua the Barracouta steamed 
out of the harbor of St. John's as the sun was setting, and, taking a 
southerly course, resumed her voyage. The air was mild and balmy, 
the sky cloudless, the atmosphere remarkably transparent ; we could 
see distinctly the mountain of St. Kitt's and the pyramid of Nevis, 
far away in the west, across sixty miles of intervening ocean, seem- 
ingly joined together, showing above the horizon in purple silhouette 
against a sky of pale, opalescent tints. Hugged Montserrat was also 
in plain sight, forty miles to the south of Nevis ; and between the 
two, Redonda, misty and golden, like Kubla Khan's pleasure-dome, 
floated midway in the waves. Ahead of us, leagues away in the 
south, we were aware of Guadeloupe — dimly shadowed forth between 
sight and imagination — a great mountain in cloudland. "We barely 
had time to repeat the names of the islands, in their order, before 
they faded from our sight. Day was done. Done, and done with ! 
It was difficult to realize that the sun had gone down in the fore- 
ordained, natural way. It went out, so to speak, suddenly, unex- 
pectedly (as if something was wrong with the meter, or the wires 
had got crossed) ; it did not appear to sink beneath the waves, but to 
plunge into them, so that one almost expected to see a great splash, 
and, by the obvious association of absurd ideas, was reminded of 



LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 81 

the Irishman who, upon hearing the sunset-gun one mellow evening, 
asked if the orb of day always " wint down wid a bang." There was 
no twilight, no evening ; night began late in the afternoon ! The 
stars blazed out unexpectedly, not one by one, but simultaneously, as 
if the constellations were revealed by the drawing of a curtain, or, to 
use a more commonplace metaphor, by the starting of a dynamo with 
which they were connected on electric circuit. 

]STever do I remember to have been more spellbound by the gentle 
influence of the stars than I was all that evening while lounging 
about on deck ; at times reclining in a deck-chair to gaze aloft, 
watching the tapering mast as it swayed to and fro, describing great 
arcs and circles on the face of the heavens. At times I leaned over 
the taffrail, attempting in vain to make out the line of the horizon, 
and to distinguish between the glowing stars, that hung so low they 
seemed like lights shining afar from a mysterious coast, and the 
glimmer of their reflections, that bespangled the darkness of the 
sea. The trade-wind thrummed across the rigging, the cordage 
gave out a whispering sound of many voices — the droning of a great 
city in the dead of night. The lapping of the water against the 
side of the ship, the plash of the waves breaking near her, the swirl- 
ing of the foam in her wake, the gentle rocking of the vessel, all 
soothed and lulled the senses, tempting to forgetfulness, dispelling 
all thought of care and vain regret. It was delicious, sensuous. 
Reader, it was sleep-compelling ; therefore marvel not that I yielded 
to the power of the enchantment, and oftentimes knew not whether 
I was in dreamland or awake, in spirit journeying among the Is- 
lands of the Blest, or in the flesh voyaging between the sea and 
stars. 

Just before midnight our ship ran under the lee of Guadeloupe 
and steamed gently to the south, close to a mysterious coast barely 
distinguishable in the darkness. Those passengers — I was one of 
them — who had remained up to view the island by the glimpses 
of the new moon, might as well have turned in at their usual bed- 



82 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

time for all the idea they got of its scenery or proportions, and so, 
without further delay, sought their sleeping-places on the deck. 
Yes ! we Barracoutans slept on deck. Not because it was hot, un- 
comfortable, or stuffy down below, nor because we were deck-passen- 
gers ; each one of us had a state-room apiece at his or her disposal, 
a roomy, clean, well-ventilated state-room ; for in respect of her 
cabin accommodations the Barracouta is a model ship, being also 
an easy, although somewhat persistent roller, she is a good ship to 
pass the night in. We slept on deck because we were " out for a 
good time," as an English passenger put it, and did as "we jolly 
well liked." We found sleeping on deck had very much of the flavor, 
and all the attractions, of camping out, with none of the disadvantages 
of damp beds or busy insects; there was a feeling of freedom about it, 
a delicious sense of abundant ventilation and elbow-room ; it was also 
gratifying to our personal pride, for we flattered ourselves that we were 
granted this, among other special privileges, because we happened, 
luckily, to be friends of the captain — having by the same token, also, 
a right to sit at his table, to smoke in the purser's cabin, or to be on 
terms of personal intimacy with the man at the wheel, if we saw fit to 
cultivate his acquaintance ; all rules and regulations of the company to 
the contrary notwithstanding. In the case of the lady passengers (who 
occupied their reservation upstairs nightly), they looked upon sleeping 
in the " Social Hall " as a guarantee and confirmation of their right 
to have luncheons served on deck between meals and to ask the cap- 
tain difficult questions in navigation. They availed themselves of this 
their privilege, not to say undoubted right, with an unswerving deter- 
mination — were not to be persuaded that their state-rooms were habita- 
ble ; nor would they permit themselves to be drawn into unnecessary 
argument about the matter, but maintained a perfectly unanswerable 
silence that in the end gained them the victory. At four bells, even- 
ing, elles y etaient, and until morning elles y restaient. If, as some- 
times happened, a heedless male passenger, on deck after ten o'clock, 
discovered that he had forgotten some indispensable article of personal 



LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. S3 

property, he had but to make up his mind whether its possession was 
worth a journey down the forward hatch, a walk aft past the engine- 
room, through the steward's pantry, across the pitch-dark expanse of 
the dining-saloon, a grope around in his state-room, and a return trip 
to the upper deck ; or whether he had better do without — whatever 
it happened to be — altogether for that night, vowing to remember to 
stow it away on deck before early bedtime the following evening, and, 
acting accordingly, reconcile himself to the inevitable, call down bless- 
ings on the head of the man who invented sleep, and make the best of 
it until the stewardess announced, as was her wont, at an early hour 
the next morning, that the occupants of the Social Hall, having folded 
their tents, had stolen below, to reappear an hour or two later in tri- 
umph at the breakfast-table. 

Most of the gentlemen camped aft under the deck-awning, making 
themselves comfortable on mattresses and pillows borrowed from their 
state-rooms ; the ladies, as before noted, reposed amidships, where the 
motion of the ship was reduced to a reassuring minimum, in the So- 
cial Hall, with all its doors and windows open, delightfully cool, com- 
fortably furnished with broad and well-cushioned settees, and withal 
a good place for conversation, day or night. The Doctor (and who 
ought to know better than he if there was any danger in sleeping on 
deck ?) established himself, the third night out from Kew York, be- 
tween the cabin skylights, where he slept in peace and perfect venti- 
lation, the loose continuations of the drapery of his couch fluttering 
freely in the trade- wind ; for he invariably refused my nightly offer 
to get a paper of carpet-tacks and a hammer and tack him in securely 
for the night. He was habitually and invariably the first one to 
turn out in the morning, never once missing a sunrise during the five 
weeks of our out-of-door, open-sea life. I slept for thirty-three nights 
either on deck or in the smoking-room, wherever I found the best 
draught, and, strange as it may appear to those who have never 
breathed the mollifying air of these regions, I was cured of a sore- 
throat and influenza, to which I had fallen a victim on the windy, bit- 



84 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

terly cold day I left New York. It was delightful to awaken in the 
morning refreshed by these alfresco slumbers, experiencing none of 
the sensations of languor which generally render the operation of dress- 
ing in the state-room so tedious and discouraging. All one had to do 
was to open one's eyes, sit up, and straightway begin to eat of the fruit 
placed within reach the night before ; watch the sun rise, bundle up 
one's bed, and stow it out of the way of the sailors when they began 
washing the decks. We even enjoyed witnessing that operation, usu- 
ally so maddening to sleepy-heads below, as I can testify from drowsy 
experience gained on Cunard or White Star steamers, for often have I 
been awakened by the sound of scrubbing and squeegeeing over my 
head when I thought the merciless tar above would scrub a hole in 
the deck and tumble in upon me — bucket, squeegee, wet feet, and all. 
After sunrise and fruit, it was the height of luxury (it is one of the 
most delightful reminiscences of the trip) to saunter forward, and tip 
a sailor to give one a good sousing with sea-water. Those of us who 
tried the experiment daily were compelled to station ourselves near 
one of the scuppers in the forecastle while Jack Tar ducked us with a 
stream from the deck-hose, sometimes directed against us with mis- 
chievous suddenness and force, to the great amusement of his grinning 
mates. Afterward we were thoroughly groomed, oftentimes with such 
hearty good-will that we were ready to cry out at being so vigorously 
" polished off," as the sailors called the operation of setting us in a 
glow. Then — well, then — we ate a little fruit while dressing, strolled 
aft to our state-rooms, and partook of occasional fruit till we sat down 
to a breakfast which consisted principally of the same delightful diet. 
Every morning the Doctor gently announced his return to conscious- 
ness, and oranges, by drawing sundry deep and comfortable sighs, 
that I may not better describe than by saying they sounded like long- 
needed holiday sighs of restfulness. He evidently enjoyed inflating, 
not only his lungs, but his entire " subject " with the fresh trades. He 
seemed to know, by reason of much study of matters anatomical, how 
to distribute the pure air into his innermost recesses as if he were 



LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 85 

a well-developed, still-paying, although partially worked-out mine, 
whose lowest levels and longest galleries required thorough Ventilation 
to clear them, not, indeed, of choke-damp or smoke of blasting-powder, 
but of lingering reminiscences of anaesthetics, operations, and stuffy 
sick-rooms. Having thus, so to speak, thrown open the doors and 
windows of his earthly tabernacle, the Doctor merrily greeted me in 
the following formula : 

" Well ! what do you think of it now ? " To which I triumphantly 
and on all occasions made reply : " There's nothing like it ! " 

By it we both meant everything that entered into, belonged to, or 
was part of, what might be called the whole outfit of a trip down the 
islands, to wit : The sea, the air, the islands, the people, the green- 
turtle, the fruits, the good old ship, our fellow-passengers, and, above 
all, sleeping on deck. 

The Barracouta having run under the lee of Guadeloupe about mid- 
night, as I have already shown, coasted along the west coast of that 
island until between three or four o'clock in the morning ; then pass- 
ing a cluster of small islands called the Saints, just as the sky began 
to glow in the east, came again to the open sea. When it was light 
we could see, many miles astern of us, the great mountains of the 
island we had passed in the night ; closer to us, the Saints were clearly 
visible on our starboard quarter, and a little to the north of east we 
descried the small island to which Columbus gave the name Marie 
Galante, calling it after his own ship. 

To those of the passengers who rose at the break of day the rising 
sun revealed the great hills of Dominica, at a distance of twenty-five 
or thirty miles to the east of south. In the clear atmosphere of the 
morning it seemed at first to be close at hand, but as the sun drew up 
after it a golden haze from the ocean, the island mysteriously appeared 
to withdraw from us until we were midway between it and Guade- 
loupe ; then the gray of its shores became a deeper blue, that changed 
to olive green, faded to brown of cliffs and promontories, or faint-yel- 
low tints of cane-pieces and droughty meadow-land, spreading between 



86 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

the brighter greens of forests and valleys refreshed by living water- 
courses. Dominica lay before us, clothed in a rich garment of many- 
blending colors, resplendent in the morning sun, majestic in its out- 
lines and proportious^-the grandest and most magnificent of all the 
Caribbees. 

All around the ship, although we were still far out at sea, count- 
less canoe-shaped skiffs danced and tossed on the great waves that set 
the steamer a-rolling until it was difficult to keep a footing on deck. 
In each of these tiny craft were two darkies, who displayed wonderful 
skill in handling the lightly built pirogues (for so are called the 
little vessels so similar in appearance to the jteriaguas one sees in an- 
tique pictures of the waters around my native town), in none of which 
would I attempt the passage of the Tappan Zee, even on a moderately 
windy day, much less dare the perils of a voyage from one Caribbee 
to another, in any weather. So lightly did these slightly built fishing- 
boats skim from one wave-crest to another, that at a distance they 
looked more like white or brown butterflies flitting over a meadow 
of billowy, wind-tossed grain than canoes sailing on the great ocean. 
The negro fishermen are daring navigators, thinking nothing of cross- 
ing from one island to another — forty, fifty, even a hundred miles 
from shore to shore. 

The coast of Dominica rises majestically in a succession of cliffs 
and terraces, towers higher and higher, until many of its peaks and 
pinnacles attain a height of three thousand or four thousand feet ; then, 
above all, Mount Diablotin, the highest mountain in the Windward 
Islands, lifts its head more than a mile above the sea. As we neared 
the shore we could hear the thunder roll, and see the lightning play 
among clouds gathering thick above the cane-pieces and pasture- 
lands of the foot-hills. We could trace the course of foaming moun- 
tain-streams leaping from crag to crag, down glens and gorges, be- 
tween heavy masses of overhanging foliage, down to where a line of 
snow-white surf broke against the coast-wall of solid rock. The green 
of the hill-sides and the plantations was fresh and vivid, owing to the 



LIFE ON SHIPBOARD. 87 

abundance of rain that falls upon Dominica all the year round, in fre- 
quent copious showers ; for even in the height of the dry season the 
floods descend almost daily, until the rank vegetation glistens and 
shines, at no time showing brown and sear as on others of the 
islands. 

In the opinion of Trollope, who has written a most agreeable and 
entertaining book on the West Indies : " Dominica is by far the most 
picturesque of all the islands. The mountain-chain rises parallel to 
the coast, and all the hills are broken and rugged, seamed and fur- 
rowed and scarred, covered with a luxuriant vegetation of every shade 
of green ; purple, of mango and cocoa ; golden, of cane and lime and 
orange and citron. Palms crown their ridges, cultured grounds infre- 
quently gleam golden brown on their slopes, and dense clouds come 
pouring over their crest from the Atlantic. North and south this bul- 
wark of hills ends in high cliffs plunged into the sea." When the day 
is fair the outlines of the mountains show clearly defined against the 
sky, but rainless days are few in Dominica, and almost constantly great 
clouds hide the uplands in impenetrable mists and fogs. We were 
fortunate in the hour of our arrival on the coast of this grand Carib- 
bee, on the morning of a perfect day, and we saw the whole ex- 
tent of it as we coasted under its lee, keeping close to the land, for we 
were to call at Roseau to receive passengers and take the mails on 
board. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SABBATH ISLAND. 

Dominica. — Mount Diablotin. — The Lay of the Land. — The Forests and Mountains. 
— Its unexplored Interior. — Dr. Imray's Description of its Soil and " Peculiari- 
ties." — Its Crops and Commerce. — The Land of Caribs. — Roseau. 

The island of Dominica lies between the Caribbean Sea and the 
Atlantic Ocean in 15° 39' north latitude, 61° 30' west longitude, mid- 
way between Guadeloupe on the north and Martinique on the south. 
It is twenty-nine miles long, extending from Cape Melville on the 
north to Cachacrou Head in the south ; at its greatest width, that 
is to say, from Pagouma Point to Crabiere Point, it is sixteen miles 
in diameter. A line drawn between these two promontories across 
the island would pass nearly over the peak of Mount Diablotin, 
which is, as I have already said, the highest mountain, not only in 
this island but also in all the Caribbean Archipelago. Indeed, if we 
could see a plan of the elevation of the Caribbees as they lie from 
north to south, we would be struck by the fact that, beginning 
with Sombrero, at the extreme northerly end of the group, there is 
a noticeable and progressive increase in the height of the summits 
of the mountainous islands, until Mount Diablotin, the dominating 
height, is reached, thence the altitude of the hills diminishes, with 
marked regularity, to the south of this central mountain, gradually 
decreasing in height toward the low rolling hills in the south part of 
Trinidad. 

The last-named eminences are but moderate-sized braes, subsiding 
into broken plain and prairie country, only slightly raised above the 



SABBATH ISLAND. 89 

level of the waters which ebb and flow between Trinidad and the 
mainland of South America, through the Serpent's Mouths, into which 
empty the incalculable floods of the Orinoco Eiver. 

In like manner, that other island mountain-chain— for so we may 
call the Greater Antilles and the Virgin Islands— rises in successive 
leaps from the sea, beginning with a range of low hills west of the 
centre of Cuba, attaining great height in the eastern part of that 
country, whence it dips beneath the ocean again between Cuba and 
Hayti, to rise in the latter island to its grandest height, eight thousand 
feet or more, thence descending to a lesser elevation in Porto Eico, 
a still lower in St. Thomas ; and so, decreasing in size until the most 
easterly of the Virgin Islands is reached, the mountain-range sinks 
again to sea-level, and its crest is lost in the channel between Ane- 
gada and Sombrero. 

Dominica, according to the "Leeward Islands Almanack," contains 
186,436 acres, or 290 square miles, of which 55,000 acres are under cul- 
tivation. It has a coast-line of over one hundred miles ; the whole 
surface of the island is very irregular, and there is but little marshy 
land. I can do no better than quote from a description of Dominica 
written by a certain Dr. Imray, who resided for many years on the 
island and who is undoubtedly the best authority on all matters con- 
cerning the geography, botany, and physical peculiarities of this grand 
Caribbee. 

The sketch itself, from which I shall quote, originally appeared in 
the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 1848 : 

" ' Viewed from the sea,' says the doctor, < the island has a singu- 
larly bold and magnificent appearance. A dark, irregular mass of lofty 
mountains rises abruptly from the ocean, as if suddenly upheaved 
from the deep by some mighty convulsion of nature. The rugged 
grandeur of the island is softened, on a nearer approach, by the mantle 
of green that everywhere covers its surface, from the sea-margin to 
the tops of the highest mountains. In sailing along the coast the 
smiling valleys, deep ravines with overhanging cliffs, and lofty, wooded 



90 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

mountains, form a succession of views of exceeding beauty and mag- 
nificence. . • • 

" ' The coasts of the island, for the most part bold and rocky, are 
here and there indented by deep bays. On the windward side, high 
ranges of cliffs, broken at intervals by ravines and valleys, rise precipi- 
tously from the water's edge. ...... 

" ' The European visitor is struck with the luxuriance of vegetation 
that everywhere meets his eye. Not only are the precipices fringed 
with trees and shrubs, but along the face of the cliffs are seen growing 
many different kinds of plants, and even trees are observed shooting, 
as it were, from the bare rock, and sending out their roots in all 
directions in search of rents and crevices, into which they drive for 
the purpose of finding nourishment. Wherever, indeed, the smallest 
portion of soil can collect, there some form of vegetable life is met 
with. 

" ' The highest range of mountains runs in the centre of the island 
in the direction of north to south. From this, smaller ranges of 
mountains pass down to the coast on each side, being intersected by 
valleys and deep ravines, narrow and winding at first, but opening out 
toward the coast. ....... 

" ' The formation of the island is volcanic. The cliffs near the sea 
are chiefly composed of vast masses of conglomerate. In many places 
along the coast beds of coral are found lying on the conglomerate rock 
at a height of more than two hundred feet above the sea-level. 
There are many volcanic openings in different parts of the island. 
Around all of those that I have visited are found large accumula- 
tions of sulphur. This substance is met with in the greatest quan- 
tities at the southern extremity of the island, in a deep and confined 
valley, where there are several volcanic fissures. Near most of these 
openings, springs of hot water issue from crevices, and in the Roseau 
Valley they boil up in the bed of the river. .... 

" ' From the mountainous nature of the country abundance of rain 



SABBATH ISLAND. 91 

falls ; and in the bottom of almost every valley there is a clear run- 
ning stream fed by many tributaries. ..... 

" ' The whole face of the island, except where it is cleared by culti- 
vation, is covered with forests. In some of the valleys of the forest, 
trees attain an enormous height and size ; their stately, massive trunks, 
rising from the ground like huge columns, excite the wonder and ad- 
miration of the beholder. 

" ' The soil differs in quality in different districts, but it is every- 
where fertile in the low-lying grounds and a short way up the sides of 
the mountain. Still higher up, a red or yellow clay is generally found, 
covered by a thin stratum of vegetable mould. A substratum of clay 
is, however, very common throughout the whole island. 

"'Of the surface of the country, generally, but a small portion is in 
cultivation, not more than a thirtieth part. The sugar-plantations are 
chiefly situated in the valleys near the coast, where the soil is very pro- 
ductive. The mountains bordering on the sea round the whole island 
were at one time covered with the plantations of coffee, which then 
formed the staple export of the colony. About eighteen years ago 
there appeared on the trees a blight, which has completely ruined 
these properties — not much more coffee being now produced than suf- 
fices for the consumption of the inhabitants. The quantity of coffee 
formerly raised and exported used to be from two to five million 
pounds a year. The cultivation is reviving. 

" ' On the windward side of the island the trade-breeze is generally 
regular and steady. The atmospheric current is interrupted by the 
high central range of mountains, and, in consequence, there are fre- 
quent calms on the leeward coast, with occasional gusts of wind rush- 
ing down the ravines and valleys with much force. 

" ' The mountains of this island are the highest in the whole range 
of the Lesser Antilles, the highest peak of Morne Diablotin reaching 
the height of 5,314 feet. 

" ' To gain the summit of any of the higher mountains is a task by 
no means easily accomplished, for they rise so abruptly as only to be 



92 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

accessible by following the course of some steep ridge. I have twice 
ascended the Couliabon Mountain (not far from Roseau), which is 
4,500 feet high. Gradually, as the ascent is made, the character of 
the vegetation alters, and the noble forest-trees shrink into small 
shrubs. Still, wherever the eye reaches, all is green, unless it be 
where dark-gray masses of rock project from the mountain-sides, or 
a bright-red surface is left by some avalanche of earth that has 
been recently separated by the heavy rains, and has fallen into the 
ravine below. When the traveller has at length reached the highest 
peak, he is rewarded for the toilsome ascent by a prospect of sur- 
passing loveliness and grandeur. The sublimity of Alpine scenery 
is combined with the verdure and luxuriant vegetation of the tropics. 
On one side the spectator looks down on the country below as on a 
map ; on the other, mountains stretch away beyond mountains, some 
shooting up in isolated peaks to the skies, others sloping in undulating 
ridges to the sea-shore. The mountain-sides, brilliantly lighted up 
by the rays of the sun, furnish a strong contrast with the dark masses 
of shadow thrown on the deep ravines beyond. The snowy-looking 
clouds, as they float along, continually vary the light and shade, while 
every tint of green is beautifully blended, from the deep sombre 
shade of the primitive forest to the light, lively hue of the cultivated 
cane-field. The air that is breathed is pure, and uncontaminated by 
the causes of disease that abound along the sea-margin or lurk in the 
recesses of the ravines and valleys. 

" ' Though the temperature at some seasons is high during the day, 
and the atmosphere close and sultry, the nights are invariably cool, 
the neighboring high mountains sending down their refreshing breezes 
as the sun sets. 

" ' The average temperature in Roseau for each month, taken 
over a period of five years, is — mean annual temperature, 79.40°. 
The average maximum is 83.93°, and the minimum 74.88°. The 
mean temperature near the coast is about the same as in the other 
islands, but the minimum range is considerably under most of them. 



SABBATH ISLAND. 93 

" * The division of the year is into the wet and dry seasons, though 
rain falls at all times of the year. The difference is, that a much 
greater quantity falls in the rainy or hurricane season, as it is more 
commonly called (beginning in the latter part of July and ending in 
October), than at any period of the year. By the register kept in the 
garrison at Morne Bruce, it appears that from April, 1846, to April, 
1847, sixty-eight inches of rain fell, and during the succeeding year 
seventy-two inches. 

« < Vegetation is hurried on with extraordinary rapidity by the heat 
and light and continual supply of moisture ; but decay is equally rapid. 
In these countries, indeed, the destructive process that is in operation 
everywhere goes on with an energy and activity unknown in temperate 
climates. The heavy rains, followed by intense heat and high winds, 
act upon the cliffs, and continually detach stones and large fragments 
of the rock. Where the roads lead under these cliffs, it is dangerous 
to pass during or after heavy rain. Landslips are constantly happen- 
ing in all parts of the island. The mountain-slopes are washed by the 
floods of rain in the hurricane season, and the clear, sparkling stream- 
let becomes all at once a turbid, impetuous torrent, dashing down to 
the bottom of the ravine to join the river below, which rolls on to the 
sea loaded with immense quantities of earth, vegetable and animal 
matter, and the trunks of trees ; and sometimes large stones are car- 
ried along its bed by the force of the torrent. The ocean is tinged 
for miles out by the red earthy matter, and the debris often is washed 
up by the waves, and strewed along the coasts. Nature, indeed, in 
these islands, assumes her most terrible as well as her most beautiful 
forms, for what visitations can be more appalling than the earthquake 
and the hurricane — the one shaking down cities in a few minutes, 
and burying their miserable inhabitants in the ruins ; the other sweep- 
ing, with its destructive blast, across the face of the land, and leaving 
only desolation and ruin behind ? ' " 

The population, according to the census of 1881, was 28,211. Of 
this total 309 were of Carib blood ; of these 173 are said to be pure 



94 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

Carib by uncontarainated descent ; but there are those who assert, 
on the other hand, that at present there are no people of unmixed 
Indian blood on the island. In the foregoing extracts from Dr. 
Imray's description of the island the rainfall is said to be less than 
eighty inches in each year ; this does not accord with what I have 
elsewhere stated, that as much as two hundred and eight inches of 
rain was estimated to have fallen in certain years. I made the extract 
in testimony of the larger quantity of annual rainfall from "Antigua 
and the Antiguans," a history to which I am inclined to accord a cer- 
tain degree of reliability. It is more than likely, however, that Dr. 
Imray states the fact with greater exactness ; this would seem to be 
probable, when it is remembered that he made his residence in the 
island of Dominica, and was therefore presumably fitted to speak 
with definite understanding of all such matters. Should the rain- 
fall of Dominica be less than eighty inches, it is still double, 
or nearly double, that of the neighboring droughty land of Antigua, 
and it was the contrast between the climates of the two Caribbees 
that I was seeking to illustrate when I quoted from the book in 
question. 

About twenty thousand acres of land only may be said to be under 
active cultivation in the body of the island, that is to say, successively 
tilled from year to year, although a much greater quantity is occasion- 
ally, and at irregular intervals, brought under crops. Be this as it 
may, by far the greater part of Dominica is unbroken wilderness. 
The four centuries that have passed since the great Admiral christened 
it Sabbath Island have changed its aspect, we may well be sure, 
but little. Its impenetrable forests and steep hill -sides have resisted 
the axe and ploughshare, setting at naught the toil of settlers, save 
where here and there infrequent clearings, by almost infinite labor, have 
been made to yield rich crops of sugar-cane, and, in former days, 
abundant supplies of coffee, indigo, and, it is said, some cotton. 
Sugar, of course, is the principal product — of which six thousand hogs- 
heads was the largest annual yield at any time, that is to say, an 



SABBATH ISLAND. 95 

amount equal to but one-tenth of the annual product of Martinique. 
The quantity produced is no greater now than it was one hundred 
years ago. 

Cocoa is an important crop, and the manufacture of lime-juice is ex- 
tensively carried on. Coffee was at one time the chief export, and Do- 
minica berries were famous for their size and quality, and their aroma 
was delightful to connoisseurs. Great quantities of oranges are shipped 
hence to New York ; bananas, pineapples, cocoa-nuts thrive luxuri- 
antly in all parts of the island, and it is claimed that the " greater 
part of the bay-rum exported from St. Thomas is made from oil dis- 
tilled from Dominica bay-leaves.'' In addition to these staples, there 
are to be had in this wonderful place — ginger, cinnamon, peppers, 
cloves, nutmegs, vanilla, toics-les-mois, cardamoms, and cassava. Many 
valuable woods grow in the forests — logwood, mahogany, satinwood, 
rosewood, among others — and a bewildering variety of other useful 
trees, of which there is a list of one hundred and sixty-nine varieties 
catalogued in the almanac from which I have several times quoted. 
Food is abundant, living is cheap, the island is not overcrowded; 
therefore the darkies have an easy time, as no one need go hun- 
gry at any time of the year — no one, at least, who will walk into 
the woods, where are wild fruits and vegetables to be had at no 
more trouble to the would-be eater than to put forth his hand and 
pluck. 

About eight o'clock in the morning the Barracouta stopped, a mile 
from shore, in front of Roseau, the principal town of the island, and 
fired a gun to call off the boat with the mails and passengers that 
were waiting to come on board. The scenery of Roseau Bay is 
grand ; it is beyond all power of description to paint its loveliness 
and stately beauty. The Roseau River empties a strong and tumultu- 
ous current into the sea, in flood-time washing ton upon ton of gravel 
and sand into the bay, discoloring the water for a mile or more from 
shore. All the surroundings of the harbor are so beautiful, so fasci- 
nating, that we were sorely tempted to go ashore, but we had to be 



96 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

satisfied with a short peep into this delectable haven, and to leave it 
with regret, always longing to return and explore its wonders. We 
tarried only a short time, then kept on our journey down the coast, 
and so came, in time, to the open channel between Dominica and 
Martinique. 

Of all the Caribbees, Dominica most awakened my curiosity and 
excited my imagination. It seemed so inaccessible, so mysterious, a 
great wilderness in the midst of the sea, unexplored and unexplorable. 
What wonder that the Caribs longest remained in possession of it ; the 
mention of its name suggests an inquiry into the history of that inter- 
esting race. Just as at Barbados it seems natural to inquire into the 
statistics of sugar-planting, in St. Lucia to rehearse the stories of the 
wars between England and France, so in Dominica one is tempted to 
discourse of the legends of the Carib people, to learn of their struggle 
for liberty, their mad fight for existence. The legends of this ill- 
fated people seems to haunt the mountain-heights and valleys where 
they longest made a stand in defence of their old homes, as echoes call- 
ing back from hill and glen. 

In the least-explored mountain-retreats and gloomiest valleys of 
Dominica there still exists a miserable remnant of this once powerful 
and numerous nation, a few wretched survivors preserving some tra- 
ditions, and until within a few years a vestige of the ancient language 
of a great and warlike people — the undisputed, unconquerable masters 
of all the Caribbean islands in years gone by. For years and years 
after the coming of Columbus the " Caribs " and the " Canibals," the 
" Robbers " and the " Man-eaters," successfully resisted all attempted 
invasions, and were only after ages deprived of their inheritance, as the 
ancient Britons were in the end dispossessed by the Danes and Norse- 
men. Inch by inch, foot by foot, in continual struggle the natives 
defended their island settlements. It is the old story of the North 
American Indians over again, of savage races in all parts of the world 
when in conflict with Europeans — a competition of arrows and clubs 
against gunpowder and rum ; savage cunning against civilized diplo- 



SABBATH ISLAND. 97 

macy. This process of civilizing the Caribs went ruthlessly on — Carib 
against Spaniard, Frenchman, Dutchman, Englishman, Carib against 
the whole world, until there remains of the ancient possessors of these 
islands but a handful on Dominica and a wretched band of half-breeds 
(half Carib, half runaway-slave) on the island of St. Yincent ; nor will 
it be many years until the last Carib shall be gathered to his fore- 
fathers, leaving nothing but a tradition — the imperfectly remembered 
story of a once mighty people. 

On Sunday, November 3, 1493, Columbus, on his second voyage, 
discovered Dominica, and naming it in honor of the day, sailed to the 
east of north, laying his course for a smaller island, upon which he 
landed, calling it " Marigalante," after the name of his own ship. 
Taking possession of all the islands in sight in the name of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, naming the largest of them " Guadalupe " (having 
promised the monks of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Estremadura to 
call some newly discovered place after their convent), Columbus con- 
tinued on his voyage, passed Antigua, St. Kitt's, and the islands to the 
north and west of Dominica, and so came to Hayti, his desired haven. 
In after years so troublesome did the Caribs become, opposing all 
attempts to settle or even explore Dominica, that the historian Da- 
vies, failing to possess himself of accurate information concerning it, 
romances about the island in a manner worthy of credulous Sir John 
Mandeville himself. "Writing of Dominica in 1666, he states that in 
his day it was a howling wilderness, " inhabited by hordes of hostile 
savages who dwell among horrid and unnatural scenery," infested by 
" an infinite number of reptiles of a dreadful bulk and length," men- 
tioning in particular one " monstrous serpent that wore on its head a 
very sparkling stone, like a carbuncle, of inestimable price. ... It 
commonly veiled that jewel with a thin moving skin, like a man's eye- 
lid, but when it went to drink or sported itself " this reptile " fully dis- 
covered it, so that the rocks and all about it received a wonderful lustre 
from the fires issuing out of that precious crown." The Caribs kept 
away from the coast, hiding themselves in the forests and fortifying 



98 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

their almost inaccessible mountain-encampments, leaving the shore in 
horrid solitude to the sea-birds that " are, for the most part," says Da- 
vies, " taken by hand, not fearing man, in regard they seldom see any." 
The Caribs had good reason to keep away from the sea-shore, for 
Oldmixon tells us that : " At this time (1676) there was a wicked 
practice in the West Indies of which the English are accused, and that 
was their stealing and enslaving Indians, which they took on the con- 
tinent or the islands, and one, Colonel Warner, being charged with 
the unlawful traffic — if it deserves that name — was made a prisoner in 
England, and sent ... to Barbadoes to take a trial there, but he 
found so many friends that he came off." He also states that although 
Dominica was claimed by the English sovereigns as "a jewel in the 
British crown," they could not for many years base their right of 
ownership on any proof of peaceful possession or even successful re- 
sistance to the native attempts to dispossess them of it ; for their sub- 
jects, who desired to settle upon the island, maintained with diffi- 
culty a mere foothold on the coast, all their efforts to penetrate into 
the interior resulting in certain loss of life and disastrous defeat. 
So that, although the English pretended " to be lords of this island, 
they never successfully attempted to make any settlement upon it, the 
Caribbeans are so numerous. . . . 'Tis likely the Caribbeans will 
never part with the possession of this island, and so it may as well be 
left out of the Governor of Barbadoes' commission, as the Kingdom of 
Jerusalem out of the King of Spain's titles." 

From time to time runaway negro slaves joined themselves to the 
Caribs, and by intermarriage bred a race of " black Caribs," as the 
half-bloods are called, to distinguish them from the " yellow " or true 
Caribs. Gradually the aborigines were driven from their ancient do- 
mains, until in our days they are crowded into a small reservation on 
the windward side of the island, extending three or four miles along 
the Atlantic coast and reaching inland to the summits of the moun- 
tains. There they live pensioners upon the charity of a government 
that, as we have seen, once despaired of ever being able to conquer 



SABBATH ISLAND. 99 

their warlike ancestors. Mr. F. A. Ober, in his " Camp in the Carib- 
bees," a most interesting and useful book, gives an account of his visit 
to Cabes-Terre (Carib's-land), where he lived for months engaged in 
his work as ornithologist for the Smithsonian Institute. He tells us 
that the Caribs raise a few yams, sweet potatoes, cassava, bananas, and 
plantains ; live in huts framed of poles and thatched with bundles of 
grass. The roads to their settlements are rough trails ; winding through 
the forests, over mountains, and along the banks of torrents. The 
adult people are clad in little besides their shirts, and the children in 
nature's covering that requires no patching, and admits of no tucking 
or letting out. The men hunt a little, do as little work as possible, 
helping the women make baskets of a peculiar grass so closely woven 
together that they will hold water. 

The principal town of the Caribs, Salibia, as it is called, is situated 
high up on the mountains of Dominica, and is seldom visited by white 
people. The Caribs of Dominica speak a jargon of English which is 
almost unintelligible to the white residents of the island. But a few 
years ago the last Carib who could speak the native dialect of the 
aborigines of Dominica died of old age and was buried near Salibia. 
Curiously enough, but just as might have been expected when some 
one person had to "say the last word " ever to be spoken in Caribbese, 
this ultimate Carib was a woman. With remarkable patience the other 
survivors of her nation waited until this old lady, with her last word 
of their native tongue on her dying lips, departed this life, taking 
with her into everlasting silence all that was left of a language of 
which she had for many years enjoyed a tyrannous and exasperating 
monopoly. 



CHAPTER IX. 



MADANINA— MARTINIQUE. 

A Silver Streak. — Shakespeare's Knowledge concerning the New World and the Canni- 
bals. — Martinique, its Physical Geography, Climate, and Soil. — St. Pierre, Marti- 
nique, Colored Folks. — The Costumes, Jewellery, and Appearance of the Franco- 
Africaines. — A Night in the Harbor. 

^-^Lf&^&JS& HKKF. is a river in Macedon, 
and there is also, moreover, 
a river at Monmouth." As 
England and France are 
separated by the Straits 
of Dover, so are English 
Dominica and French Mar- 
tinique parted by an ex- 
panse of open sea. More- 
over, as one river resembles 
the other in the peculiarity 
that " there is salmons in 
both," if Captain Fluellen 
is to be believed, so do each 
of the bodies of salt-water 
in question possess one 
quality in common, to wit : 
Both are three and twenty 
miles in width. 
Speaking of Fluellen, I am reminded that the first edition of 
Shakespeare's collected plays was published in London in 1623, the 




MADANINA— MARTINIQUE. 101 

same year that the poet's fellow-countryman, Thomas "Warner, landed 
upon St. Christopher and founded an English colony ; that is to say, 
one hundred and thirty years after Columbus had bestowed his own 
name and that of his patron saint upon the island until then known 
as The Fertile by its Carib lords. Shakespeare, who of all living men 
of his day was best informed of what was going on in the world, and 
made such masterly use of his world-wide knowledge, has paid but 
little attention to the discovery of a new continent peopled by races 
of strange and outlandish men. He indeed mentions the "still-vexed 
Bermoothes " (the Bermudas) — his Shy lock is made to say of Antonio, 
" He hath a third (argosy) at Mexico " — but he barely notices the New 
World, and yet surely lie must have heard much of America ; for 
in the traveller's history, the recital of which by Othello so charmed the 
greedy ear of the fair Venetian, there is abundant evidence that the 
author had in mind the story of some adventurous mariner newly re- 
turned from beyond the Western ocean to spin yarns about his most 
disastrous chances and moving accidents, and indulge in a quiet shot, 
with his good long-bow, at "the cannibals that each other eat." That 
there were races of anthropophagi known to the Europeans before 
Columbus' time is certain, but man-eaters were not called cannibals 
until after the Caribs had eaten their first white man, who, in the nat- 
ure of things, was probably a subject of their Most Catholic Majes- 
ties Ferdinand and Isabella. Therefore when Shakespeare puts it into 
the mouth of one of the characters in " Coriolanus " to say, " Had he 
been cannibally given he might have boiled and eaten him too," the 
poet is guilty of as glaring an anachronism as when in " Julius Caesar " 
lie makes his Brutus bid Cassius " count the clock." Some of the 
tribes of the New World anthropophagi are said by early historians to 
have called themselves Caribs, some Caribals, while others of them 
pronounced the latter word, "Canibals" — changing the r to n, as Chi- 
namen transmute r into I. This does not seem in the least improbable, 
when we consider that the Spaniards changed Christoforo Colombo to 
Cristobal Colon, and the English, in turn, converted Santo Christoval 



102 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

into St. Kitt's. The New "World undoubtedly contributed the word 
" cannibal " to European languages — and the Caribbees are undoubt- 
edly the original Cannibal Islands. 

But to return to my story. I have not forgotten the name of the 
strip of seething brine that writhes and tumbles, tormented by tide 
and wind, between the cliffs of Dover and the rocks of Cape Gris-nez 
— I have crossed it many times and oft, in imminent danger of losing 
all my personal effects, except such as happened to be fastened securely 
to the outside of my suffering body, or locked in my portmanteau ; 
but I have to confess that, just as Fluellen had forgotten the name 
of the river in far-away Macedon (if, indeed, he ever knew it), so " it 
is not in my prains what is the name " of the peaceful sea, if name 
it has, that lies between Cachacrou Head, Dominica, and Cape St. 
Martin, Martinique, sparkling in the sunlight, glistening in the star- 
light, day after day, night after night, throughout unending summer. 
But whatever be the name of the strait or channel across which the 
Barracouta bravely bore us, the passage over the blue deep from Do- 
minica to Martinique was delightful, and beyond all gainsaying enjoy- 
able, being made in ease and comfort. 

Between Cape St. Martin, its northwest extremity, and Cape 
d'Enfer, the jumping-off place at the tip-end of the island on its south- 
eastern confines, Martinique is thirty-five miles in length, varying in 
width from seven to sixteen miles, being broadest between Cape 
Enrage on the leeward and the Peninsula Caravelle on the windward 
shore. Its area is about three hundred and eighty square miles, that 
is to say, 245,000 acres in all, of which a little over 80,000 acres are 
well-watered plains and fertile hill-sides under cultivation. There is 
nearly an equal amount of forest or savannah, while the remainder of 
the land, either because of its ruggedness, or because it is covered with 
impenetrable jungle, lies fallow year after year. Some of this fallow 
land was at one time cleared of trees and broken by the plough ; in 
later days it has been permitted to remain untilled, and in many places 
is once more overgrown by shrubs and ferns, or by a vigorous second 



MADANINA— MARTINIQUE. 103 

growth of trees. The surface of the island is rugged and mountainous, 
the shores steep and precipitous. Great promontories and headlands 
project out to sea, enclosing deep bays and narrow inlets. Many lofty 
peaks rise in the centre of the island (Mont Pelee, over 4,400 feet 
high, most prominent of all, towers in the northwest), overlooking 
valleys and table-lands, covered with dense " high woods," as the pri- 
meval forests are called. In the centre of the island the Pitons du 
Carbet attain a height of 4,000 feet, forming a group of very rugged, 
conical peaks, while in the southeast Mont Vauclin, with flattened top, 
stands up boldly 1,600 feet into heaven. These three elevations, sur- 
mounting the foot-hills, are visible far out at sea, rendering Martinique 
a conspicuous landfall to mariners while yet many miles of ocean sep- 
arate them from the land. All the mountains of the island show traces 
and scars of their volcanic origin, and in this island, as in Nevis, St. Lucia, 
Dominica, and others of the mountainous islands, there are numerous 
boiling springs, some of which are possessed of medicinal and curative 
properties. The soil is a rich vegetable loam, mingled with pumice ; it 
is rich beyond all belief, readily cultivated, and for this reason Maiv 
tinique is esteemed as the most fertile of all the Caribbees, with the 
possible exception of St. Christopher and wonderful Barbados. The 
climate is delightful at all times of the year except during the months 
of July, August, and September ; the inhabitants enjoy immunity 
from hurricanes, for the island lies out of the well-defined track of the 
cyclones that frequently burst with phenomenal fury on the shores of 
others of the Caribbees. The mean annual temperature is 81° of heat 
i — the warmest weather prevails in June, when the thermometer aver- 
ages 83° ; the coolest in January, when the mean temperature is 77°. 
In August, during the height of the wet season, the rainfall amounts 
to 11.5 inches ; in March, the driest of the months, to 3.7 inches, and 
the total for the year is eighty-seven inches, or more than double the 
total rainfall of New England. 

Taking the size of the island into consideration, its population,which 
amounts to no less than 163,000 (an average of 428 to the square mile), 



104 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

is remarkably large. Belgium, the most thickly populated country in 
Europe, contains but 440 people to the square mile ; therefore it would 
appear that Martinique is one of the most densely inhabited parts of 
the globe. When we recall the fact that in the whole island there 
are but 80,000 acres under cultivation, we may well wonder how it is 
possible for so many human beings to find subsistence, or how even a 
small proportion of them can find work of any kind to keep their idle 
fingers from picking and stealing. Nearly ninety per cent, of the in- 
habitants of Martinique are of pure negro blood, or have African 
blood in their veins. It is said the half-breeds predominate, for the 
reason that white and black races have mingled more freely than has 
been the case on the islands belonging to Great Britain. The colored 
people of Martinique are, it is said, more prosperous, better fed and 
cared for, more ambitious of getting on in the world, and consequently 
more industrious and intelligent, than the blacks on other islands. 
I can hardly credit the statement, made in my hearing while on the 
island, by a French Creole, who presumably had no intent or desire to 
exaggerate its grossness, that sixty-six per cent, of all the children born 
on the island are of illegitimate birth. If this be true, 1 can imagine 
a more hideous social condition does not exist elsewhere in the so- 
called civilized world, unless it be among the negroes on the island of 
Hayti, for instance, where the blacks are rapidly returning to a state 
of barbarism more cruel and degraded, more hopeless than that in 
which their ancestors were found when their enslavers brought them 
from Africa. 

Late in the afternoon the Barracouta announced her arrival in the 
roadstead of St. Pierre by firing a salute, which was so promptly an- 
swered from shore that the report of the cannon on land sounded like 
the echo of the ship's brass twelve-pounder. The darkies that came 
to meet us in a flotilla of small boats made as great an outcry as did 
their dusky brethren at the other ports we had visited, but, unlike the 
Kittefonian or Antiguan darkies, who jabbered an almost unintelligi- 
ble English dialect, the Martinique colored folks jabbered a perfectly 



MABANINA—MARTINIQ UE. 105 

unintelligible patois which, by reason of certain familiar antics of in- 
tonation and odd inflection, sounded like French. We were at a loss 
to distinguish what the darkies said beyond oui and non, and so they 
might as well have been Biscay an fishermen or contemporaries of 
Clovis. I entered into what might, by excessive compliment and a 
polite stretch of the imagination, have been called a conversation with 
the first fruit-seller who came on board. .Taking him aside, where I 
could bargain with him without fear of being outbid by other cus- 
tomers, I pointed to his stock-in-trade, which consisted of forty or 
fifty limes in a tin-pail, and remarked, in pure commercial French, be 
it observed, using the familiar phraseology of the author of " Shop- 
ping before Breakfast," 

" Combien ? " 

The grinning darky promptly named a price that would have 
sounded ridiculously cheap in Fulton Market — it sounded ridiculously 
enough on board the Barracouta — , 

" Deux sheel'n, s-e-e-ks pance." 

Rather than have him imagine that I did not understand I closed 
the bargain then and there, explaining to the Doctor, who volunteered 
the information that I was not buying greenhouse melons, that there 
was no use trying to cheapen the wares of the French negroes, whose 
politeness and attention to the little courtesies due to strangers were so 
different from the small trading spirit displayed by " niggers " de- 
scended from the slaves of a nation of shopkeepers. 1 do not think I 
convinced my shipmate of the correctness of my theory ; he, however, 
seemed to be much cheered and encouraged by the assurance, and 
made haste to repeat it to our companions, who, as I now believe, 
formed a pool to bear the lime-market, for in a few minutes the 
price of that comestible had fallen to a lower rate per dozen than I 
had paid per lime. When our gallant captain heard of my fruit trans- 
action he seemed to enjoy himself more than at any other time during 
the trip. His mirth was infectious, and was like to become epidemic, 
until, finally, I was obliged to dispense unlimited lime-juice in the 



106 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

smoking-room. The skipper, with reckless extravagance (as I thought, 
seeing it came so dear), drank his allowance straight, notwithstand- 
ing the numerous hints thrown out to him by my more considerate 
fellow-passengers, who, mindful of the costly quality of my entertain- 
ment, adulterated their lime-juice with sundry and divers of the ship's 
stores. The captain's physical sufferings were easily alleviated, but 
his thirst for knowledge concerning the strict business-like habits of 
the colored Creoles of Martinique was unquenchable for several days. 

As soon as possible after our arrival in the harbor of St. Pierre, 
we went ashore in one of the ship's boats and landed at a well-built 
pier, excellently contrived for the convenience of passengers. "We 
were at once most favorably impressed by the prevailing order and 
cleanliness of all we saw, as well as by the neatness of the houses, that 
were noticeably French, as by the spruce, well-favored, prosperous ap- 
pearance of the people. Like all towns on the leeward coasts of the 
mountainous Caribbean islands, St. Pierre is situated close beside the 
sea ; in fact, it is only separated from the water by a wide beach, 
along which there is a row of warehouses, occupied by shipping mer- 
chants who carry on a large trade, not only with France, but with all 
other parts of the civilized world ; for this city of twenty-five thousand 
inhabitants is the chief commercial port of the island and its roadstead 
affords good anchorage for many vessels. The mountains rise in a 
vast amphitheatre behind the houses, extending, in magnificent sweep, 
from Point Carbet on the south to La Mare on the north ; between 
these two promontories a crescent of sand, five miles in length, bounds 
the bay. In the middle of the picture the hills are cleft by the valley 
of the Riviere Roxelane, whose waters, after a headlong rush down 
the steeps, flow gently across a fertile, highly cultivated savannah, 
until they finally empty into the bay of St. Pierre, near the northern 
suburbs of the town. The streets of St. Pierre are well paved — 
streams of water flowing on both sides of the roadways carry away 
the dirt and garbage ; many of the wider avenues are shaded by trees, 
and the shops in all the thoroughfares give signs of doing a driving 




A FRENCH t'KEOLK. 



MADAN1N A— MARTINIQUE. 107 

trade with crowds of customers. For these reasons the town has a 
great appearance of prosperity, and all its people go about the streets 
with the air of those who find little difficulty in keeping the wolf 
from their doors and are able to lay up a little store for rainy days. 
In many ways the contrast between St. Pierre and the British towns 
we had visited was very marked — a contrast that other visitors to the 
Caribbees have not failed to notice — but not for a deed or a gift of the 
whole lovely Colombian Archipelago can I be induced to say one word 
that might maliciously be tortured into a reproach of the Anglo- 
Creoles ; for assuredly it does not lie in the mouth of any traveller 
who has been a welcome guest at the groaning tables of Kittefonians 
and Antiguans, or who has been entertained, as I afterward was, at the 
Ice House in Bridgetown, Barbados, to grumble or find fault even 
with the dust on the streets of people who keep their houses swept 
and garnished, their doors wide opien, and their tables spread for the 
entertainment of foreigners, no matter whether their guests arrive in 
yacht or man-of-war or are cast away on their coasts by the wreck of 
clumsy merchantmen. It were churlish indeed to find fault with any 
custom or to dwell critically upon any shortcoming of these hospitable 
people, who, as hosts, live up to their green turtle. Anthony Trollope, 
who may be accepted as a writer entitled to his opinion on this as on 
all other subjects, in his delightful book, "The West Indies and the 
Spanish Main," after reluctantly confessing his surprise at the great 
superiority of the French West Indian towns to those which belong 
to Great Britain, ventures to draw a comparison between the manners 
and customs of the English Creoles and the habits of life of their 
neighbors, the inhabitants of Martinique and Guadeloupe. He de- 
clares that the neatness and orderly management of the French cities 
and villages and the contrasting slovenliness and disorder of the 
British towns are due entirely to natural causes, which he formulates 
as follows : 

" The French colonists, whether Creoles or Europeans, consider the 
West Indies their country ; they cast no wishful eyes toward France ; 



108 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

. . . they marry, build in and for the West Indies, and for the 
West Indies alone. In our colonies it is quite different. . . . 
Everyone regards the colony as a temporary lodging-place, where they 
must sojourn in sugar and molasses till their mortgages will let them 
live elsewhere. They call England their home, though many of them 
have never been there. They talk of visiting home and going home, 
and pique themselves on knowing the probable result of a contested 
election in England more than in mending their roads, establishing a 
police, or bettering the condition of a prison. The French colonist 
deliberately expatriates himself ; the Englishman never." 

In these words Trollope paraphrases the language of a relative of 
the poet Coleridge, who wrote of the Caribbees as he found them 
more than half a century ago. Mr. Coleridge's book, " Six Months in 
the West Indies," is a most entertaining volume, and I commend it 
as such to my readers. As it was in Coleridge's time in the good old 
days of slavery, so it was thirty years ago in the time of Trollope and 
in this year of grace — in all that testifies to the prosperity and thrift of 
all classes of Creoles, white or black, the British West Indian islands 
present a striking contrast to the French Caribbees. 

Walking slowly, keeping my eyes about me as I loitered from cor- 
ner to corner through the streets of St. Pierre, I presently came to the 
busiest part of the town, where stands a great church, in the front of 
which I halted for a few minutes to watch a throng of worshippers 
coming in from all directions, summoned by the tolling of a bell to at- 
tend vespers. It was a good-natured, talkative, laughing, gossipping 
crowd, composed for the greater part of colored women, all of them 
gay and radiant in the gaudiest of calicoes and colored cotton-stuffs ; 
there were but few meanly clad persons, and fewer beggars than we 
had elsewhere seen. The men were more stalwart, more active and 
agile in their movements than are our Southern blacks or the negroes 
of St. Kitt's and Antigua. The women were more shapely and well- 
favored, their figures lissome and by no means gross, or lacking in 
beauty of contour or comeliness. There were all shades of color, 



MAD AN IN A— MARTINIQUE. 109 

from the saccatra of pure African blood to the sangmele, who, being al- 
most white, might readily pass for a swarthy French Creole of European 
descent. The costumes of the women were neat and agreeably clean ; 
their gowns, of cheapest prints or coarsest colored-stuft's, were arranged 
with taste and carefully draped. The garment of prevailing fashion 
was a single loose wrapper of colored calico or flowered muslin, belted 
at the waist with artful but perfectly excusable care. The young 
women leave one arm and shoulder bare, which, thrown into strong re- 
lief by well-washed cambric, makes a pleasing study in black and white, 
well worthy of the chalk and charcoal of the ablest Tile Club man or 
Salmagundian. When walking, the negresses gather up one side of 
their phylacteries, fastening them at the hip, thus adding to their 
jaunty appearance, gaining a certain ehic which lends an artistic finish 
to their toilet ; for the negresses have learned from their French mis- 
tresses the arts and graces of making themselves attractive, and beyond 
doubt study how to make themselves pleasing in the sight of men. 

With a Franco-Africaine, love of personal adornment is a passion 
in the gratification of which she displays a reckless extravagance, as 
witness the immense string of beads of extraordinary size she coils 
around her shapely neck, to say nothing of the preposterous rings she 
attaches to her ears — I do not exaggerate when I state that it would 
require but little stretch of the imagination, or of the ear-rings them- 
selves, to speak of some of them as being large enough to serve as 
muffin rings. A favorite form of ornament is composed of six golden 
bars, as large round and as long as the wearer's little finger, bound 
together with heavy bands ; these ear-rings look more like the gilt bar- 
rels of a six-chambered pistol than female gewgaws, and the beholder 
is surprised to find that the lobe of the human ear can bear the weight 
of so much metal without being torn or causing pain to the wearer. 
In keeping with these encumbrances, the size of which I do not exag- 
gerate, are brooches as large as soap-dishes, lockets the size of snuff- 
boxes, bracelets, armlets, finger-rings of all patterns and degrees of 
inconvenience — all gorgeous, not to say stunning — and I can hardly 



110 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

believe the statements I heard reiterated again and again, to the effect 
that all this jewellery is of pure gold — that even the blackest ne- 
gresses scorn to wear Brummagem or plated imitations. If, however, 
these fairy tales be true, then can I boast that at Martinique I had 
my washing done up by the spouse of a bonanza king who (unless he 
had paid his wife's jeweller) could still afford to sit in his counting- 
house, counting out his money, while the queen herself was in the 
garden hanging up my clothes. 

Little girls, maidens, matrons, and ancient dames, all of them wear 
gorgeous bandanna handkerchiefs, built upon their heads with scrupu- 
lous care in intricate folds, and all these coifs, it is needless to say, are 
as gaudy, if not as tasteful and unutterably lovely, as Easter bonnets. 
Many of the quadroons are handsome, even beautiful in their youth, 
and all the women of pure black, as well as those of mixed blood, walk 
with a lightness of step and a graceful freedom of motion that are very 
noticeable and pleasant to see. I say all the women — but I must con- 
fine this description to those who go shoeless — for when a negress 
crams her feet into even the best-fitting pair of shoes her gait becomes 
as awkward as the waddle of an Indian squaw or of a black swan on 
dry land ; she minces and totters, in such danger of falling forward 
that one feels constrained to go to her and say : " Mam'selle Ebene or 
JVoirette, do, I beseech you, put your shoes where you carry everything 
else, namely, on the top of your well-balanced head — do let me see 
you walk barefoot once again, for, I assure you, neither your Chinese 
cousins nor your European mistresses can ever hope to imitate your 
goddess-like gait until they practise the art of walking with their tiny 
high-heeled boots nicely balanced on their heads, as you so often are 
pleased to carry yours.-' 

The language of the people of Martinique of course is French. 
The negro Creoles speak a jargon that baffled all our attempts at ex- 
tended conversation, although they understood those of our party to 
whom French of Paris was not unknown. The whites speak French 
with an accent that very closely resembles the speech of the Creoles 




A MARTINIQUE BELLE. 



MADANINA— MARTINIQUE. Ill 

of Louisiana. And just here let me mention that the name " Creole" 
is applied to everything born in the West Indies, and, as the London 
Spectator of recent date points out : " There are not only Creole men 
and women of pure British, as well as of French, Dutch, and Spanish 
stock, but Creole bulls and cows, Creole horses, and Creole cocks and 
hens ; and as the Louisianians are especially fond of the appellation, 
so also do the Creoles of the "West Indies consider the name honorable 
and worthy to be borne by all people of native birth." One hears the 
phrase, " one of the oldest Creole families," just as in New York one 
hears the term, " old Knickerbocker families," or as in Nevada I have 
heard the enterprising, public-spirited citizens who opened the first 
faro-banks or gin-mills deferentially referred to by the upper middle 
classes of a brand-new mining-camp as " solid old-timers." 

Continuing my stroll about the streets, looking into the shop- 
windows, watching the people passing and repassing, nodding in return 
to their nods, bowing like a tea-shop mandarin, I came at length to 
the boutique of a dealer in fruits — fruits of all kinds, mangoes, sappo- 
dillas, sour- and sweet-sops, avocado pears, and others too numerous to 
mention. I at once proceeded to take samples of the stock-in-trade of 
this merchant, telling him to keep my score and I would settle with 
him when I could eat no more. At a fruit-stand in New York I should 
speedily have bankrupted myself, and yet when I ceased eating, for 
very shamefacedness, the fruiterer was perfectly content to receive the 
sum of one franc, then and there to him in hand paid. Telling him 
I would return later in the evening to clear out his remaining stock, I 
joined the stragglers of our party at the landing-place, and went with 
them on board the Barracouta to a late but satisfying dinner, and at 
an early hour turned in on deck. 



CHAPTER X. 

A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 

"Not our Funeral." — A Merry Party. — Over the Hills and Far Away. — The Gendar- 
merie. — The Valley of the Roxelane. — The High Woods. — Martinique Scenery. — 
A Way -side Luncheon. — Agouti. — A Pig's Nurse. — A Chorus of Bells. — Return to 
the Ship. 

We bestirred ourselves early next morning, left the ship before the 
sun was two hours high, were rowed ashore, and from the landing 
readily found our way to the office of the agent of the Barracouta, 
where a line of carriages was drawn up along the sidewalk await- 
ing our arrival, for we had been promised a long drive over the hills 
and far away through the high woods of Martinique. We were a 
merry and comfortable party, as may well be imagined, and as we 
took the seats assigned to us in the vehicles, which formed in a line 
on one side of the street, all traffic in the neighborhood came to a 
stand-still ; a crowd gathered around us, impeding the passage of carts 
and pedestrians. We were evidently objects of curiosity to the on- 
lookers, and seemed to afford them as much amusement as a Punch 
and Judy show affords the unfashionable mob at the East End of 
London. The situation, besides being extremely embarrassing, was, 
to say the least, ridiculous ; the row of waiting carriages was painfully 
suggestive of a much more melancholy occasion than that which had 
called together the respectful throng ; there was an oppressive silence 
until someone, prompted by the imp of mischief, observed : 
"It takes a longtime to get the remains down-stairs." 
Very trivial the remark may seem as repeated here, but under the 
circumstances it was sufficiently vial d j?ropos to throw some of the 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 113 

lighter-minded Barracoutans into convulsions of laughter, in which 
they were joined by the puzzled and delighted by-standers, who 
laughed loud and long to see the ecstasy of mirth which brought the 
tears to our eyes and set stitches in our shaking sides. So we drove 
away, conscious that we had disgraced ourselves before the public — a 
black public, too, and for a time were humbled in spirit, looking at one 
another with reproachful glances of mingled surprise and reproof. It 
was not long, however, before we regained our wonted spirits, and once 
more all went merry as a marriage-bell. The moral of this incident 
teaches how easy it is to be excited to enthusiasm, and how people with 
a mind to enjoy life may not be restrained from making the most of it 
in the glorious West Indies. 

We drove along the Rue Yictor Hugo, a narrow, well-paved avenue, 
taking our departure from the vicinage of the great church, a building 
of no architectural beauty or pretension to elaborate design, but main- 
tained in perfect repair, near which stands a tall framework of heavy 
timbers erected to do duty as a belfry when the steeple of the church 
was overturned by an earthquake many years ago. The shops on 
either side of this main avenue are neatly furnished, and present a 
prosperous appearance. Rue Yictor Hugo, the Broadway of St. Pierre, 
runs parallel to the shore and is crossed at right angles by other thor- 
oughfares and passages, descending in easy grades from the upper town 
toward the sea, all of them well swept and sprinkled. Near the north- 
ern end of the town, where is the principal market-place, we drove 
by numerous substantial dwellings, each enclosed in a walled garden 
deeply shaded by magnificent mango-trees ; then turning into a street 
leading inland, we drove down an abrupt steep, into the most densely 
peopled part of the town, and presently came to the Gendarmerie, 
extensive barracks built on the Place d'Armes many years ago for 
the comfortable quartering of several hundred troops. I asked our 
driver if there were many soldiers in Martinique in these days of the 
Republic, for formerly kings and emperors had here kept stationed 
a considerable contingent. He replied in a patois more unintelli- 



114 



DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 



gible than that of Sardou's " Nos Bons Yillageois," and so to this day 
I am none the wiser for his attempt to speak French. However, as we 
passed the military precinct without challenge, without, indeed, behold- 




The Market-place. 



ing more than a dozen uniformed personages, having the semi-civilian 
air of sergents-de-ville rather than the prim appearance of soldiers of 
the line, I concluded that the garrison had been withdrawn from Marti- 
nique shortly after Napoleon the Little had left Maximilian to his own 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 115 

devices and to the mercy of the Mexicans. That this was the case I 
afterward learned in well-broken English from a vieille moustache, 
who informed me he had been mustered out of service in Martinique 
years ago. In plaintive language he expressed his anguish and futile 
indignation, his despair at la deeheance of a great nation ; that final 
catastrophe having occurred, according to his calendar, when France 
consented to the burglary of Alsace and Lorraine. Then every French- 
man fell down, and he himself, in particular, was forced upon his 
knees in the midst of chaos. 

" C'etait un crime, m'sieu', un meurtre brutal — epouvantable, dis- 
je ! inexcusable; je ne l'excuserai jamais — jamais!" cried this Creole 
Bombastes Furioso, breaking forth in an unrestrainable torrent of 
his native French, hurling the words at me in impotent rage in so 
loud a tone of voice, with such a claquement des doigts, snapping his 
fingers in the face of the whole world, that I was afraid he would 
bring down upon us the reserve force of gendarmes, who would 
promptly lay us two by the heels for plotting blue ruin against the 
French Republic, to the detriment and final undoing of the peace 
and security of the same. The gesture of unutterable scorn, not to 
say ineffable hatred, for the scelerats who had winked at the ravish- 
ing of their country and were responsible for the existing state 
of affairs in France may suggestively and generally be described as a 
shrug of the shoulders. But to speak of it simply as such would as 
faintly convey an idea of its intensity and exaggerated significance 
as it would to speak of Niagara as a cascade, or of the cancan as a 
figure in the Lancers. It was a convulsion, threatening the disloca- 
tion of the man's entire anatomy — I was startled, alarmed, by its exe- 
cution, expecting it to be followed by a shower of buttons torn from 
their fastenings by the uncalculated force of the sudden strain to 
which they were subjected. The lower borders of his trousers parted 
company with the tops of his gaiters, his imperial seemed to descend 
to the vicinity of his vest-pockets, his shoulders to mount above the 
tops of his ears ; so that I have always fancied that, had he worn 



116 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

epaulets, those insignia of his military rank would have clashed to- 
gether above the pompon on Yieille Moustache's fatigue-cap. Until I 
witnessed that particular shrug I had accused Cicero of unworthy ex- 
aggeration when he says of Piso who, he alleges, was wont to eke out 
the poverty of his oratory by meretricious aid of countenance and gest- 
ure, being wise by signs : Respondes altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad 
nientiim depresso supercilio, crudelitatem, tihi non placere / that is to 
say, he fetched one of his brows up to his forehead and bent the other 
down to his chin. But, having witnessed the marvellous contortions of 
my gallant Frenchman, I can see no reason why I should not credit the 
Roman pettifogger with all the forensic agility of which Cicero alleges 
Piso was possessed withal. 

When I had thanked and re-remercied, reassured, and had the 
goodness to be assured and reassured by this embodiment of French 
Imperialism, I parted from him with full understanding of the causes 
that keep the barracks in St. Pierre tenantless until this day. After 
I had turned the corner and was beyond his ken, when I no longer 
felt his glittering ej 7 e piercing my inner consciousness, as he would 
have impaled a retreating Prussian, had he ever seen one, on his 
bayonet, I permitted myself to hope that the day would soon come 
when, not alone in the Antilles of his exile, but in all the fair land 
of his birth, barracks and casernes will be turned into store-houses, 
swords into pruning-hooks, and a mighty host of men sent to follow 
the plough. Vive la Hepublique ! 

Continuing onward beyond the Gendarmerie, we drove by the 
Jardin d'Acclimatation, a wonderful park where there is a marvellous 
exhibition of the flora of all the islands of the Caribbean Archipelago, 
and of many other tropical lands besides. There days might be spent 
in studying the beauties of trees and flowers ; we had, however, no 
time to halt, but hurried past, catching tantalizing glimpses of the treas- 
ures growing in this enchanting paradise. Just as we began the ascent 
of the road which winds upward from the broad savannah spreading 
in gentle slopes and undulations between the town and the forest- 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 117 

clad hills, we saw the way-side shrine so often described by visitors to 
Martinique. I, for one, had often read of it, had seen many pictures 
of it, was, indeed, on the outlook for it ; therefore, when the little place 
of devotion came in view, I hailed it as a familiar friend. It stands 
close to the road, and as we passed the place our driver reverently 
lifted his hat, an act of piety he was called upon to repeat many times 
during the day, for there are similar shrines at almost every turn. 
On our left the Riviere Roxelane came tumbling down between the 
rugged walls of a charming valley, shaded over by forests, choked 
with luxuriant vegetation, where the net-work of vines festoon and 
beautify the cliffs and precipices that rise from the grand sweep of 
mountain-side. On our right a cascade, leaping from the verge of a 
perpendicular crag, fell in a shower of silver through the green of 
palm, bread-fruit, and ceiba-trees, some of them covered with blossoms, 
all wet with spray and foam. Our driver, ventilating his knowledge 
of English, in reply to our pantomimic inquiry, assured us the fall 
was " sevantee fit 'igh." The water fell into a picturesque basin, in 
which we saw papyrus and graceful reeds growing among curious 
water-plants ; and the night-blooming cereus bloomed in such perfect 
beauty, glorifying this enchanted spot where the splash of falling 
water sounded so cool and inviting, the shadow of trees and vines so 
restful, that it required no small amount of resolution to leave it be- 
hind and begin our journey along the scorching road out from the 
shadow of the foliage into the glare and torment of the sunlight. 

From the next turn in the road we looked upon Mount Pelee, 
soaring above the valley of the EoxeJane, where that riotous stream 
boiled and foamed close to the margin of the high woods. We traced 
its comse as far as the eye could reach, until it glistened in the dis- 
tance like a narrow riband of silver shot through cloth of green. The 
road-sides were hedged with flowering shrubs ; in the thickets, the 
broad, shining leaves of wild plantains waved in the breeze. Palms 
of all varieties were everywhere — growing singly, in large groups, or 
forming extensive groves ; and near the banks of the water-courses 



118 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

were masses of the gloomy foliage of that mysterious tree, the man- 
grove, the roots of which are fabled to distil blood when torn from 
mother earth. On the hill-sides, coffee-plantations gave promise of 
infinite demi-tasses, while, protected from the direct rays of the sun 
by the shade of taller trees, the cocoa ripened almost ready to be 
gathered ; masses of volcanic rock, overgrown with mosses, lichens, 
orchids, and vegetable parasites, draped with vines and creepers, lay 
scattered in grand confusion, like ruins of cairns, or fortresses built in 
the days when there were giants in the land. We climbed upward, 
through groves of bananas, plantains, oranges, limes, and citrons, pass- 
ing sugar-plantations where the harvesters were at work cutting the 
yellow cane. From time to time, when we came to the top of a diffi- 
cult ascent, the highway skirted along the edge of cliffs or steep em- 
bankments, whence we could look for miles over hills and valleys, cov- 
ered with thickets and jungles, orchards, forests, meadows, savannahs, 
and fertile, cultivated lands, and beheld, far beyond all, the sea, shin- 
ing like lapis lazuli in the sunlight. From the heights we viewed 
giant trees dwindled to shrubs, farm-houses like playthings in the in- 
tervals. We heard the notes of many birds strange to us, the soughing 
of the trade-wind sweeping through the forest, the frou-frou of the 
palms, the drowsy sound of water dripping from mossy rocks into 
limpid pools, where callas thrive and rare water-plants (rare to us 
Northern-born folk, common weeds by their native brooks) grow in 
the dank, impenetrable undergrowth. 

High up on the hills grow the mountain-palms {Euterpe montana), 
which, although not so tall or stalwart as some of their kind, exceed 
them all in beauty and strength. They thrive best where the wind 
blows with greatest fury. We saw them swaying and bending in the 
breeze — their lissome and graceful movement most pleasant to behold. 
These palms mark the boundaries of the high woods, the impenetra- 
ble primeval forests where flourish gigantic tree-ferns, thirty or forty 
feet high, spreading out delicate, lace-like leaves of wonderful size, so 
broad, so long, that a man on horseback can find shelter from the heat 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 119 

of the sun or beating of the rain beneath their shelter. Here, too, are 
curious liana trees, from which depend long, delicate fibres resem- 
bling cordage, reaching downward from the branches until they touch 
the earth ; then, taking fresh root firmly, support their parent trunk 
like shrouds staying the masts of great ships. The young lianas, an 
inch thick, are strong and tough, and are frequently used as ropes ; 
they may be tied into knots, so elastic is the fibre of the wood before 
it hardens with its longer growth. In ravines where the soil is fat 
and rich, enormous gomrniers (gum-trees), often exceeding five or six 
feet in girth, stand with spreading roots that rise above the ground like 
flying buttresses, to support tall, straight trunks one hundred feet or 
more in height. The stem and branches of many of thesa noble trees 
are so overgrown by parasites and air-plants that one is at a loss to 
distinguish the bark or foliage of the tree itself. The Caribs made 
their war-canoes from these immense logs — even in our days the pi- 
rogues to be seen sailing about the harbors of these islands are hol- 
lowed in the old-fashioned way, with fire and axe, from the trunks of 
the gommier. This tree yields an aromatic gum, used by the negroes 
in making torches ; for this reason it is also called the flambeau-tree. 
Here and there among the underwood we saw thickets of halisiers 
(wild plantains), with broad leaves resembling those of the banana- 
palm, having a central stalk which holds aloft a trident of scarlet flow- 
ers, in shape like the gladiolus, but many times larger. At intervals 
we came to impenetrable jungles of bamboo ; bamboo, of all growing 
things beyond all compare the most ' graceful and exquisite. I will 
not attempt to describe the bewildering display of the marvellous and 
luxuriant vegetation, for every turn in the road as we ascended higher 
and higher, leaving the cultivated lands and fallow pastures behind us 
as we penetrated deeper into the high woods, revealed scenes that to 
our excited imaginations seemed to surpass in grandeur — exceed in 
enchantment, all we had looked upon before. We passed many pict- 
uresque villages of well-built houses and thatched cabins, clustering 
around little churches in front of which were wooden shrines where 



120 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

pious wayfarers had placed offerings of fruits and wild-flowers or 
lighted tapers, and all the passers-by devoutly bowed the head and 
crossed themselves, or stopped and murmured a " Hail, Mary." On 
the outskirts of these settlements are the residences of the owners of 
the neighboring estates, and beyond them the forests again shut in 
the view. 

We drove rapidly along well-made roads, crossing mountain- 
streams on old-fashioned high-arched bridges of solid masonry that, 
were it not for earthquakes, might last for centuries. Fifteen miles 
from town we halted to rest and water our horses, jaded by the long 
pull up the mountains ; then, after lunching by the way-side, in the 
shade of a giant fern, we reluctantly began our journey homeward — 
yes, reluctantly — for from our resting-place we could see the highway 
winding down into a valley of such indescribable loveliness, we could 
not help thinking that beyond was a more charming and bewitch- 
ing country than that which had excited our imagination and awakened 
our admiration as we passed through it from the sea-shore to the moun- 
tain-heights. Our ride back to St. Pierre was no less entertaining 
than our journey thence. As the journey was, for the greater part of 
the distance, down hill, we travelled more rapidly, and the changes of 
scenery were more frequent and startling ; one moment we were in the 
forest beneath arching branches, catching occasional glimpses of mag- 
nificent peaks and summits of mountains, then pent up between insur- 
mountable barriers of cliffs and crags, wondering in what direction 
lay our escape if ever we wished to leave valleys as fair, and seemingly 
inaccessible, as the Happy Valley of the Prince of Abyssinia. Out 
again from shade into sunlight, the road led along the edge of preci- 
pices overlooking miles of lowlands, undulating toward the sea in wide 
stretches of plain and savannah, changing from green to blue, fading 
to gray of distant coast-line, and the ocean bluer and mistier out be- 
yond, until the eye could not distinguish where the sea melted into 
clouds and met the sky. 

Everywhere in the cane-pieces the plantation-hands were at work, 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 121 

and on the road we met barefooted darkies, plodding steadily along, 
who gladly returned our salutations and turned to stare at us as long 
as we were in sight. They carried everything with which they were 
encumbered on their heads — cocoa-nuts, jugs, coffee-pots, cups, bottles — 
all as securely balanced as if those articles were a part of the anatomy 
of their bearer. The children, mere pickaninnies, toddled along with 
cans and calabashes of molasses, yams, bananas, oranges, or what not, 
as firmly fixed on their crania as if they had been wens. A Marti- 
nique boy will stow away as many personal effects on the top of his 
head as a Yankee boy will find room for in the pockets of his trou- 
sers. "We saw one youngster with a huge grass-mat several feet in 
diameter which he wore as jauntily as if it had been a chip hat; from 
a distance he looked, for all the world, like an animated mushroom out 
for a stroll — an object, by the way, we should not have been at all sur- 
prised to fall in with during our travels in this land of sensitive plants, 
and ferns as tall as full-grown cherry-trees. Another youth passed us 
bearing aloft a dead agouti, an animal in size, appearance, and habits 
resembling the woodchuck. This little fellow was decidedly the hap- 
piest mortal we had seen that day, and our driver's mouth watered as 
he volunteered the information : 

" He mange c'la. Agouti ! Bon ? Mais oui ! sairtan-lee ! Oh, 
for sure ! Me eat him aussi ! " 

The agouti is of the same species as the guinea-pig, and is to be 
found in nearly all the Caribbean Islands as well as in South America. 
Those who have eaten it say that its flesh resembles in taste that of 
the rabbit. It is considered to be food fit to set before a king by the 
negroes, who hunt the agouti as diligently as the darkies hunt coon or 
'possum in our Southern States. The sight of a fat specimen of this 
toothsome beast will stampede an entire gang of plantation-hands, old 
and young, male and female, all joining in the mad pursuit ; for an 
agouti hunt, I am told, equals in excitement the chase after a wood- 
chuck during the recess of a country school in our rural districts. 
Hoes, hands, and feet are brought into requisition by the negroes 



122 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

when they have run their game to earth. Frequently, before the 
prize is captured, if captured at all, a hole will have been excavated in 
the earth, which, if not as deep as a well or as wide as a church door, 
will be large enough to barbecue an ox, the darkies meanwhile display- 
ing an activity of which no one in these islands thinks their race capa- 
ble, although I must say that I saw no reason for the uncompromising 
illiberality of this almost universally entertained opinion. 

"VVe noticed but few cattle during our drive ; indeed, there are not 
many domestic animals on any of the West Indian Islands, the few we 
did see being unhealthy, poor, and emaciated. Cattle do not thrive in 
this climate — the everlasting summer weather affects them unfavorably. 
It is surprising that in all these years no one has thought of breeding 
from Hindoo stock a race of cattle that would, as is well known, thrive 
and flourish in hot climates. As it is, one sees none but sickly, 
scrawny, raw-boned beasts of diminutive size, tottering about in search 
of fodder and cooling streams. Sheep, also, of which considerable num- 
bers are brought from the United States, to be killed soon after their 
arrival, fare badly in the West Indies ; those we saw on the hill-sides 
of Martinique looked as if they had been sent south to a milder climate 
in the vain hope of arresting the ravages of a general and fatal break- 
up. As for the pigs, they were weird pictures of porcine woe ; and, a 
fact which the descriptions of other travellers will vouch for, we were 
excusable in mistaking a drove of swine that we saw rooting about in 
a cane-piece for a pack of under-sized deer-hounds lazily picking up 
a lost scent — their noses being so long and so very pointed, their eyes 
so prominent and so very glassy, and their ears hanging down by 
their jowls like the tabs of a moth-eaten fur-cap. You could count 
their ribs and tell all their bones ; their bodies were long and spectral, 
with never a suggestion of bacon or lard ; as for ham, it would have 
taken several hogs to supply that necessary part of the sandwiches for 
even a small picnic. To complete the catalogue of their poverty, there 
was not a tooth-brushf ul of bristles on the whole drove. One wretch- 
ed pig we saw deserves, and shall have, special mention. An elderly 



A DRIVE THROUGH MARTINIQUE. 123 

negress was leading it along the road by a string; she seemed so 
proud of her charge, so careful of it, so anxious in her attention to 
its bodily comfort, that one of our party said she was the pig's nurse. 
However, as she carried an earthen jug and a cassava strainer, house- 
hold goods, all of the probable value of one franc, on her head, and as, 
moreover, it was near the first of May, we concluded she was moving 
to the country where she had secured summer board for the pig, hop- 
ing to recruit its health, shattered by the gayety of a winter in the city. 

I will elsewhere describe the Creole horse, that is, the average labor- 
ing horse of these islands, which is an exceedingly inferior creature, as 
raw-boned and as ill-favored as Don Quixote's Eosinante. In Mar- 
tinique and, in fact, in other islands where considerate and hospitable 
entertainers placed their private establishments at our disposal, we 
found the vehicles well appointed, often stylish, the horses showing 
the effects of careful grooming and, although lacking somewhat in 
spirit and power, in every other way trim and well turned out. This 
was particularly true of the equipment furnished to us by our kindly 
hosts at St. Pierre ; therefore, although the day was warm and the 
roads somewhat dusty (it was impossible they should be otherwise, see- 
ing it was near the end of the dry season), we made our 'promenade en 
voiture in great comfort ; indeed, in luxury, for better roads, more skil- 
fully constructed and graded, or more perfectly kept in repair and cleaned 
of way-side weeds and unsightly rubbish one may not find in Central 
Park. Indeed, highways equal to the country roads of Martinique are 
not to be found in the suburbs of Philadelphia, New York, or Boston. 

A few miles from St. Pierre we met the Bishop of Martinique in 
his state carriage, journeying, no doubt, to pay a pastoral visit to dis- 
tant flocks in the villages of the high woods. He was arrayed in 
purple robes, and wore fine linen, and looked as if he fared sumptuously 
every day. We did him such reverence as was due his cloth ; but he 
kept his eye on his prayer-book, telling his beads until we had passed ; 
then, however, we saw him looking back after us, let us hope, to mur- 
mur a benedicite. We descended rapidly from the uplands, and 



124 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

shortly before sunset reached the level road that crosses the savannah, 
passed the Jardin d'Acclimatation and the Gendarmerie, and, as the 
bells were tolling vespers, drew up in Rue Victor Hugo, near the 
great church whence we had set out in the morning. 

Walking to the landing-place, we found it crowded with people, 
and all along the shore numberless darkies, of all kinds and conditions, 
big and little, young and old, male and female, were bathing promis- 
cuously together in innocent enjoyment. As we embarked in our 
small boat and were pushed from shore, the lamp in the light- 
house on the beach was lighted ; one by one the anchor lights were 
run up the fore-rigging of sailing-craft and steamers lying in the 
roadstead. We steered for the light of our own good ship, and as we 
reached her companion-ladder the great church-bell tolled six o'clock, 
solemnly and slowly, like an archbishop chanting mass, and all the 
ships' bells took up the chorus in sharp treble, like boy-choristers sing- 
ing the responses, and chimed out, clearly and melodiously, four bells. 



CHAPTER XL 

ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE. 

A Visit to the American Consul. — Hotel Micas. — The Carriage which never "Came to 
Arrive." — Strolls about Town. — Des MoucJies du Vent. — A Religious Parade. — 
An Ancient Muldtresse. — A Street Fountain. — Birthplace of Empress Josephine. 
— H. M. S. Diamond Rock. 

The morning of our third day in Martinique was spent by the ship's 
company in those various enjoyments which suggest themselves to the 
minds of travellers who have passed the previous day in industrious 
sight-seeing. Most of the company were content to remain on the 
ship, to write letters, post up their diaries, to read or talk over their ex- 
periences of two days on shore. Finding that the steamer was not to 
sail until early in the afternoon, I availed myself of the opportunity 
to take a final stroll. Accompanied by the Doctor and the Salma- 
gundian, I was set on shore by the crew of the captain's gig — Aleck 
and Anthony — two able-bodied sailor-men, brave hearts of ebony, of 
whom I shall have somewhat to say hereafter, in a more convenient 
part of my story. No sooner had we set foot on the quay than the 
Salmagundian hurried away to put the finishing touches to several 
sketches he had all but completed during our sojourn in the neigh- 
borhood of St. Pierre. We saw him no more that day until, as the 
Barracouta was starting — and then, just as the companion-ladder was 
about to be raised — he came on board, triumphantly proclaiming he 
had " captured four of them," producing his sketch-book in evidence 
of his industry with pen and pencil. 

The doctor and I walked across the strand to a building over which 
fluttered the Stars and Stripes in honor of the presence of our vessel 



126 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

in the roadstead. Finding the door open, we ascended a flight of steps 
to the office of the American Consul, to whom, as in duty bound, we 
intended to pay our respects preparatory to leaving his jurisdiction; 
for we were indebted for certain valuable services, most good-nat- 
uredly rendered by him, since we had made ourselves known to the 
representative of our Government on our arrival in the island. 

From the consul's we proceeded to the Hotel Micas, a hostelry of 
no inconsiderable repute for clean beds and dainty dishes — one might 
well wish the service were better, and it would call for little per- 
sonal supervision, by the way, on the part of M. le Maitre cP Hotel to 
improve it to a most noticeable degree. The hotel is similar in ap- 
pearance and equipment to those inns one sees in seaport towns in 
the South of France or in Algeria — there is a cafe, a salle a manger, a 
hillard, a high desk where presides madame or mademoiselle, as the 
case may be, sitting at the receipt of custom. It was very French in 
aspect, furnishing, and all the hundred and one things the traveller 
saw, heard, smelled, or tasted. The service was empty, unavailing, 
obstructive, impracticable politeness and naught else, as we found when 
we ordered, or, rather, politely requested, the agreeable garcon — of 
whom we had previously commanded two limonades gazeuses — to be 
pleased to cause to come a fiacre, a voiture, open or closed, of one horse 
or two, whichever might be most conveniently made to advance to the 
front door of the hotel, to the end that we might take a short prom- 
enade to the Jardin d'Acclimatation. Although we were promised 
that whatever form of two or four-wheeled accommodation might be 
assigned to us would arrive at once, immediately, in fifteen minutes 
— and then (a good quarter of an hour later) was alleged to be (it 
went without saying) arriving, it never came to arrive, although we 
waited two mortal hours, cooling our heels and tempering our impa- 
tience with limonade gazeuse ; nor did the promised vehicle (as we 
afterward were informed on our return to St. Pierre) approach to 
range itself in front of the Hotel Micas until we had started for the 
steamer, being warned by the report of her gun that she was prepared 



ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE. 127 

to sail in one hour. This incident proved to us how deeply we were 
indebted to our good friends who placed their private carriages at our 
disposal the day before — it also proved that "fine words butter no pars- 
nips." While we were waiting for the horse and buggy — which, in 
spite of the assurance that they did of a truth put in an appearance 
after our departure from the Hotel Micas, I shall always consider 
as mythical as the Hippogriff of Atlantes, or the flying carpet whereof 
Shahrazad the daughter of the Wezeer, discoursed so glibly to King 
Shahriyar — the Doctor and I took several short strolls up and down 
the streets in the neighborhood of the hotel — sometimes in company 
sometimes just "takin' a dander to oursel's," as Scotch folks describe 
the recreation of aimlessly drifting about — now here, now there, now 
in the full current of a busy street, now in the quiet eddy of a lane or 
little used thoroughfare — loafing about in a leisurely, heedless sort of 
way — poking about, " fly-gobbling " the French natives of Martinique 
call it, for they are familiar with the habits of the gobemouches that 
may be seen anywhere on the island along the road-sides, open- 
mouthed, ready to swallow any bait that may attract their attention 
or tickle their fancy, for such is the disposition of these staring 
creatures, also called des moicches du vent. 

Near the great church of which I have spoken, as I loitered along, 
followed by a squad of persistent beggars — well-dressed beggars they 
were, too ; that is to say, their poverty was not emphasized by a dis- 
play of rags or bodily deformity, so that they seemed to be amateur 
rather than professional alms-seekers — and preceded by several boys, 
who insisted upon pointing out the way to me, my further progress 
was barred, for a few minutes, by a procession of priests carrying the 
holy relics around a block of buildings in one of which, during the 
night, there had occurred a death. 

For a short time traffic was at a stand-still, the people in front of 
the shops ceased bargaining, the loungers on the corners became at- 
tentive, forebore chattering, and forgot for the moment to pass jokes. 
All the men removed their hats, the women bowed, some knelt, all 



128 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

crossed themselves. The procession of priests, cross-hearers, and 
those burning incense — a score in all — passed, and immediately the 
world went on in the ordinary way, no one asking, " Who was it ? " 
or seeming to care — the king "was dead, long live the king. 

In front of the church, clinging to the iron railing that enclosed 
a court-yard, a hundred feet or more square, was an old muldtresse, 
a very old woman — it seemed to me I never had seen so aged a 
human being, so wrinkled, so bloodless, so fleshless. Her corpse-like 
appearance suggested the thought that a skilful taxidermist had 
drawn the shrivelled, parchment-like skin of an Egyptian mummy 
over a skeleton about to fall into an unarticulated heap of dried bones. 
It was an uncanny, an unearthly sight. Slowly, and in evident pain, 
the human shape — one could hardly call it body — dragged itself ? foot 
by foot, hand over hand, along by the side of the railing ; had she let 
go of the iron she would in all probability have fallen to the ground. 
How did she get there unaided, and how was she to get away ? It 
was horrible to see her ; nevertheless I kept my eyes fixed upon her 
as if fascinated — thinking, meantime, of the Witch of Endor, of the 
three ghostly crones in "Macbeth." She mumbled and raved, yet kept 
her poor old eyes fixed on the church, on the cross in the pavement 
inside the enclosure. As people hurried by her she cowered, fearing 
to be thrown down — she nearly fell over sideways when she let go her 
hold of her support, to cross herself. She had been a tall woman dur- 
ing her youth and motherhood, years ago ; now she was passing belief 
stooped and shrunken, her features pinched and sharp ; nevertheless 
one could trace a certain memory of regularity and beauty in them. It 
was not difficult to imagine that she had been handsome long ago. As 
I watched her, it seemed cruel not to go to her aid. I would gladly have 
paid for a carriage to take her away to her home, if she had one. Where 
were her children ? Were there no refuges for the very old ? I gave her 
a franc ; she hardly understood my intent, could scarcely see the silver 
piece — was too dazed to think of thanking me, and seemed not to know 
what to do with the coin. Her lonely helplessness excited one's pity, 







$ 










STREET FOUNTAIN IN ST. PIERRE. 



ST. PIEREE, MARTINIQUE. 129 

reverence — tempted one's superstition. Two hundred years ago she 
would have been burned as an unhallowed child of Satan. Poor creat- 
ure ! She kept, her eyes turned to the cross. ! One could almost im- 
agine she was gifted with power to see into the future — she had been 
for many, many years peering into the life that is to come, unmindful 
of the past, taking no heed of the present, forgetting and forgot. 

Another excursion brought me to a fountain at a place where 
two ways met; to it there constantly came girls and women to fill 
their j ugs and buckets with water ■ drawn from a spring back of the 
town, high on the hill-side. There they stood, while their vessels were 
filling, to gossip and pass the time of day. It was a picturesque 
"bit," and is worthy of having a picture of it placed before my readers. 
Those of .them who have visited St. Pierre may be pleased to have 
this familiar object recalled to their minds. 

But I must bring these reminiscences of St. Pierre to a close, by 
saying I could write of .many other interesting sights that pleased me 
that morning while waiting for the carriage that never came to 
arrive. Having lunched at the hotel — and, angered as we were by 
the failure to visit the beautiful garden to which we had so earnestly 
desired to drive, we were nevertheless compelled to. admit .that we 
had often and in many places partaken of worse fare than that 
served by the polite gargon, who ceased not to. assure us, while we 
were at the table and as we paid our reckoning and bade him bon 
jour, that the voiture viendrait tout de suite, it messieurs Would have 
the goodness to continue to wait only one tout petit moment. 

The Barracouta steamed out the roadstead of St. Pierre, about 
three o'clock in the afternoon. As we drew away from our anchor- 
age, leaving the little town farther and farther astern, the hills seemed 
to rise higher and higher above the roofs of the houses, the sweep of 
the savannah broadened to the view, the forests appeared to recede 
inland, we could look into the deep recesses of the valley of the Eoxe- 
lane, through which, the day before, we had entered into the delecta- 
ble land, when we set out on our enchanting excursion over the hills 



130 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

and through the high woods of Martinique — an expedition of which I 
attempted some description in my last chapter. I say, attempted a 
description, advisedly ; for it would be impossible to convey any ade- 
quate idea of the grandeur and loveliness of the scenery of wonderful 
Madanina — for so the ancient dead and gone people called this fairy 
land of theirs in the olden time. I might as well try to illustrate the 
geography of the Caribbean Archipelago by means of a chart extem- 
porized on the dinner-table with finger-bowls, almond-shells, and 
other postprandial debris to represent islands, the courses of the trade- 
winds, and the tracks of cyclone creased with back of knife in the 
damask, as to seek to give a satisfying word-picture of any of the 
Caribbees. Therefore I frankly confess my dissatisfaction with my 
vain attempt to tell of the indescribable glory of Martinique. 

" I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream — past the 
wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go 
about to expound this dream " — with any idea of satisfying the mem- 
ory of travellers who have preceded him, or gaining the applause of 
those who may come after him into these charming regions. I make 
this suspiciously extravagant statement with fervor aforethought, 
many months after my visit to the Windward Islands, writing in 
midwinter, and, therefore, presumably not in the heat of enthusiasm 
or with imagination excited by recent and bewildering experience. 
None who has visited, or may hereafter visit, the delicious country 
through which it was my good fortune to travel, that rare April day, 
will attempt to gainsay me unless he be willing to write himself down 
— in short, unless he be a matter-of-fact, practical person who would 
go about to expound my dream. 

We sailed away from St. Pierre, as above related, the second Mon- 
day of April. It was midsummer with us, and it ought to have been 
spring in the latitude of New York, but I have since learned that (as 
was to be expected in the the nature of things meteorological in that 
part of the world) nature was still " haggling with its greens " in the 
neighborhood of Manhattan ; folks at home were shivering under 



ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE. 131 

extra blankets while we, thrice happy, slept in peace on the deck of 
the Barracouta, with nothing but an awning between us and the stars. 

We steamed along the lee shore of Martinique for ten miles or 
more, crossed the entrance to Fort Royal Bay, continued onward until 
we passed the southwestern promontory, Cape Salomon ; then, coming 
to the open sea, laid our course for Barbados, one hundred and ten 
miles southeast by east across the Atlantic. In the south, distant 
from us ten leagues or more, the purple mountains of St. Lucia, veiled 
in golden haze, glimmered between the ocean and a shining cloud- 
bank, that settled lower and lower, finally hiding the island as the 
setting sun glorified the sea and sky. 

The southern limits of Martinique are less precipitous than the 
northern or leeward shores. Between the bold headland we had just 
rounded and the cliffs at the southeastern point of the island the 
mountains recede a moderate distance from the coast ; the coast curves 
inward in places, affording anchorage in shallow water, safe only dur- 
ing the peaceful months when the hurricanes leave the ocean undis- 
turbed. At the head of its commodious harbor, which I have said in- 
dents the southwest part of Martinique, lies Port Royal, or Fort-de- 
France, as that town, the capital of the island, is alternately called, 
with ready compliment either to King or President, whichever may 
happen for the time being to be installed at Paris. Near this sea- 
port, once the metropolis of Martinique, the fair Creole, Josephine Tas- 
cher de la Pagerie, was born and lived in happiness, until she went to 
France as the wife of Yiscount Beauharnais. This unfortunate lady, 
after the untimely death of her first husband, married Napoleon I. 

As Empress, Josephine was mindful of the land of her birth, and, 
like Queen Esther of old, who interceded for her people, the imperial 
Creole was solicitous for the welfare of her kindred. It was due to the 
good use she made of whatever influence she may have had over the 
Emperor (whom, perchance, she, poor woman, sometimes even dared 
to call her Petit Oaporal) that her own people, the good folk of 
Martinique, had "joy and gladness, a feast, and a good day," all the 



132 ' DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

days of her power and glory. They were not forgetful of her good- 
ness when she was past interceding for them, as witness a statue they 
erected to her dear memory in Fort-de-France, where it may be seen 
looking benignly down upon the market-place until this day. 

The accompanying drawing of the humble cottage in which the 
Empress of the French was born, although it possesses an historic in- 
terest, is nevertheless calculated to convey an erroneous idea of the 
wealth and social distinction of the La Pagerie family. Judging 
from the small proportions of the cabin — it deserves no better-sound- 
ing name — its out-of-the-way position, the roughness of the material of 
which it is constructed, the entire absence of any suggestion of com- 
fort or luxury, one is led to believe that the early days of Joseph- 
ine were spent in poverty, if not, indeed, in squalor and social insig- 
nificance. Such, however, is not the case. The La Pagerie family 
were of aristocratic origin, possessed estates of by no means limited 
extent, and were considered people of importance, if not, indeed, of 
high rank. The parents of the future viscountess and empress dwelt 
for some time after their marriage in the family mansion, which was 
situated near the little cottage of the sketch ; in fact, the latter was 
but one of the numerous negro quarters erected on the home estate 
for the accommodation of the family slaves. Shortly before the birth 
of Josephine the grande maison was utterly destroyed by fire, and 
Madame de la Pagerie was compelled to seek shelter in the out-building 
whereof the Salmagundian has given the readers of this book a faith- 
ful illustration. So it fell out that the little Creole Esther, who after- 
ward was to be so unfortunate as to find favor in the sight of a greater 
than Ahasuerus, was born in a miserable shanty of rough, unhewn 
stone, thatched with the leaves of palm-trees and wild plantains. 

At a distance of one mile from the mainland, southward of a grand 
promontory called Morne du Diamant, there leaps up from the sea a 
stupendous rock, with such perpendicular sides that, by their exceed- 
ing steepness, to all appearance its narrow, level top, five hundred and 
seventy-four feet above sea-level, is rendered inaccessible to man. 




/ i 



ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE. 133 

These smooth, flinty battlements no doubt remained unsealed from 
the beginning of time until Admiral Sir Thomas Hood, serving under 
Rodney, conceived the idea of flaunting the British ensign from the 
peak of this breeding-place of sea-fowl, in the face of Frenchmen 
shut up in fortresses on Martinique, or in ships lying in Grande Anse 
du Diamant and other anchorages, almost under the shadow of the 
Caribbean Gibraltar. England and France (in Hood's time) had been 
at war for nearly a century and a half ; therefore, of all mortal beings 
hated and scorned by British tars, the Johnny Crapauds were most 
despised. The French fleets in the West Indies rendezvoused in Port 
Royal, Martinique, while the English squadrons watched them from 
Castries Harbor, thirty-five miles to the south across the waters, at St. 
Lucia. 

For years the French had maintained water-communication along 
the coast of Martinique by means of coasting-vessels dodging in and 
out of the harbors, setting at naught all attempts of the Britishers 
to intercept them as they sneaked and cowered close inshore under 
the shelter of Diamond Rock. According to one version of the story 
of Hood's exploit, some of his sailors flew a great kite from the deck 
of a sloop- of -war, or, as some say, fired a shot carrying a line, which 
they managed to stretch across the summit of the crag ; by this line 
a rope was drawn over the lofty pinnacle and made fast below. I 
take the liberty of throwing a doubt upon these clumsy yarns, being 
of opinion that a bold sailor-man climbed up the side of the rock, 
dragging a length of casting-line behind him, which his mates gently 
paid out as he won his way up to the top. Be this part of the story 
as it may, the rest is soon told — may, indeed, readily be guessed : 
How a crew of dare-devil sailors were hoisted up to the narrow foot- 
hold, many feet above the main-truck of their vessel, which had 
meantime been warped alongside the rock. Guns and provisions 
were sent aloft and stowed away by the boarding party, by whom no 
time was lost, we may well be sure, in planting the English flag in full 
view, and in defiance of the jabbering Frenchmen, who, too late, found 



134 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

themselves outwitted by the English mariners. When the sun went 
down upon that day of glorious memory for England, H. B. M. sloop- 
of-war Diamond Rock was armed, manned, and provisioned, with 
everything made snug and ship-shape. And from this sea-girt citadel 
Hood's tars blazed away with their long-toms at every kind of craft, 
seventy-four or bumboat, that attempted to run the gauntlet of their 
cannonading. For nine months the French Governor of Martinique 
was deprived of all jurisdiction over Diamond Rock, having as little 
reason to include it in his commission as the Spanish Dons, who, in 
punctilious accordance with time-honored precedent, find solace for 
their wounded pride in signing themselves, " Governors of Algeciras 
and of Gibraltar, temporarily in the possession of the British." The 
crew of Diamond Rock was finally starved out, and the Frenchmen, 
taking possession of the crag, have ever since guarded against all at- 
tempts at its recapture. 

Two hours after we left Diamond Rock behind us darkness cov- 
ered the face of the deep, the Barracouta held on her way, steaming 
leisurely all night, and shortly before sunrise reached her moorings, a 
half-mile from land, in Carlisle Bay, in which roadstead I counted over 
one hundred sea-going vessels all lying at anchor in front of Bridge- 
town, the capital of Barbados. 



CHAPTER XII 

ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 

Carlisle Bay. — A Fleet of Merchantmen. — What was not to be Seen by the Dawn's early 
Light. — Where are the Yankee Ships and their Yankee Crews ? — One Vast Sugar- 
estate. — An International Episode. — Barbadian Loyalty to Britain. — Aunt Polly. — 
Swizzles and Swizzle-sticks. 

AKBADOS, not Barby-does, 
nor Bar-bad-oes, nor, worse yet, 
Barb -ad-os, but Bar-bade-os, 
with slight emphasis on the o ; 
not o in possible nor o in toes, 
but midway between the two 
sounds, pronouncing the ulti- 
mate syllable gently and with 
bated breath ; for if there is any- 
thing a Barbadian (a Bar-bade- 
ien) will not lightly forgive, it 
is to hear the name of his island 
mispronounced or mouthed. This 
justifiable peculiarity of amiable 
folk sometimes provokes them 
to polite correction, more civilly spoken, however, be it said, than the 
impatient reproof administered by an old retainer to him who asked 
if Lord Chol-mon-de-ley was at home, " No, young man, nor none of 
'is pe-dp-le." 

Barbados is known to the initiated as Bimshire — a Barbadian as 
a Bim. Why? Ask not me. Neither by carefully turning over 




136 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

the pages of many books, intent upon determining this weighty ques- 
tion, nor by asking many wise folk who might be presumed to know 
concerning the matter, have I been able to discover the derivation of 
these words, and so, as Sindbad the Sailor threw stones at the peo- 
ple in the tops of palm-trees when he wanted a cocoa-nut in return, 
so do I throw out the suggestion, to wit : Barbados is known all the 
world over as the little island that pays her own way ; it has never 
been conquered ; its people are enterprising and energetic, go-ahead 
and driving ; in short, the business men of these islands. Barbadian 
may therefore be said to mean a man with go and grit, energy and 
vim — ergo, a Yim — Barbados, Vimshire. The town we call Havana, 
other folks call Habana. A Marseillais calls a violon, biolon, and why 
not, by this declension, changing V to B, Yim and Yimshire — Bim 
and Bimshire ? Ridiculus mus ! Perhaps ! Will anybody toss 
me a cocoa-nut, with the milk in it more reasonably or logically ac- 
counted for ? 

Ligon, in his account of this island, published in 1657, spells the 
name Barbadoes, but in all documents issued by the government it is 
printed Barbados, and the latter orthography is adopted by the best 
authorities of our own day. Certain early historians tell us that the 
Portuguese discoverers of this island found it uninhabited ; others 
state that there were a few Caribs living there, but it is not disputed 
by any that when the English colonized Barbados it was an unpeo- 
pled and deserted land. The truth of this historical fact being estab- 
lished beyond perad venture, the islanders may proudly, and do justly, 
boast that they came honestly by their possessions, having been 
obliged to drive no man thence at the beginning. The exact date of 
its discovery is hidden in obscurity, but in all probability Barbados 
was familiar to Portuguese navigators as early as the year 1518. It 
undoubtedly appears by the name of Barnuodo on an ancient chart 
(published in 1554), Bryan Edwards, who says that Barbados is not 
set down on any sea-map prior to the year 1600, to the contrary not- 
withstanding. The Portuguese called the island they discovered Los 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 137 

Barbados (the bearded), giving it that name because of many trees 
(the banyan) that had hanging from their branches great mats of 
fibrous roots which bore a fancied resemblance to long gray beards. 

Barbados, the most easterly and farthest to the windward of all 
the Caribbees, is seventy-eight miles east from St. Vincent: — nearly 
one hundred and fifty miles northeast of Trinidad, which lies across 
the mouths of the Orinoco River. It is in 13° 4' north latitude, 59° 
37' west longitude and would seem to be an island of indefinite, or, 
rather, shall I say undetermined, length ; for, according to the author 
of one of a series of original papers issued in 1886 under the author- 
ity of a Royal Commission, wherein Her Majesty's Colonies are de- 
scribed by writers who may be supposed to know whereof they write, 
Barbados is said to be twenty-one miles in length, fourteen in breadth, 
and to resemble in appearance the Isle of Wight. In the West In- 
dies Directory, Part V., published by the celebrated chart and nautical 
book-publishers at their address in the Minories, London, the island is 
stated to be eighteen miles long and twelve and one-half miles wide, 
or about twice the size of the Isle of Jersey on the coast of France — 
while in a volume issued from the United States Hydrographic Office, 
its width is set down at twelve miles, the length given being the same 
as in the last-quoted authority. These disagreements concerning a 
matter which could be so readily and accurately determined are unac- 
countable ; however, the three books are at one in stating that Barba- 
dos contains one hundred and sixty-six square miles, or a little over 
106,000 acres, of which (surprising to say) less than 7,000 acres are 
uncultivated, a fact that testifies to the fruitfulness of its soil as well 
as to the diligence of its people. The island is an irregular oval in 
form, if we believe one author, or irregularly triangular, if we choose 
to receive the testimony of another. 

The surface of the country is rolling prairie, undulating gently 
backward from the sea, in this respect resembling Antigua. In the 
northeastern part of the island, within the limits of a territory fitly 
called Scotland, the cultivated hills attain a height of between eleven 



138 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

and twelve hundred feet, Mount Hillaby and Mount Boscobella being 
the loftiest elevations. In this district the country is very broken, re- 
sembling Scotch moorland ; but, for all that, the land is diligently 
tilled and kept in a high state of cultivation. 

From the two heights above named a chain of hills extends south- 
ward through the colony, as it were a backbone, from which spurs and 
offshoots stand out in both directions, the range being intersected in 
all directions by ravines and gorges, giving to the scenery a weird and 
picturesque aspect. Among these hills subterranean streams find their 
way, through caverns measureless to man, whether down to a sunless 
sea, or into old ocean as ordinary water-courses flow, I know not. The 
face of the island gently declines toward the south, until near that ex- 
tremity there are no altitudes of more than two hundred or three 
hundred feet ; the River Mole and two smaller streams flow through 
the fertile intervals, draining them of surplus moisture. 

The annual rainfall amounts to over seventy inches, and Barba- 
dos is rarely subject to droughts of long enough duration to damage 
the growing crops. There have been notable, but infrequent, excep- 
tions to this rule. The mean temperature is 81° F. ; the thermometer 
annually ranges between 76° and 83°. Occasionally slight shocks of 
earthquake are felt, and in the rainy season (July to December) thun- 
der-storms, accompanied by violent hurricanes, sometimes cause wide- 
spread and appalling damage to life and wordly goods, as was the case 
in 1780, when four thousand persons and property to the value of 
£1,300,000 were destroyed in a few hours. There was also a fearful 
storm in 1831, by which one thousand six hundred of the inhabitants 
lost their lives, and nearly £1,700,000 worth of real property was 
swept away by the irresistible fury of a tornado. The island is sur- 
rounded by coral reefs, in places extending three miles out to sea, 
with infrequent openings through which entrances are gained to two 
or three shore-anchorages. To approach these requires the most care- 
ful navigation of local pilots, who cruise in all weathers many miles 
from land, in eager competition to be first to board incoming vessels. 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 139 

The scene which presented itself to our charmed and astonished 
gaze on our arrival in Carlisle Bay was one of remarkable activity 
and bustle, in many ways interesting and picturesque. At no other 
port in the Caribbean Islands did we behold so great a fleet of mer- 
chantmen and coasting-vessels. There were several trading-steamers 
lying at anchor near a trim, steel-clad cruiser flying the standard of 
St. George, the broad expanse of the roadstead being crowded with 
craft of all sizes, of every variety of rig and model : Smart, yacht-like, 
Gloucester fishing-smacks, with tapering masts and light spars, many 
of them lately arrived from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland or the 
Georges, laden with malodorous cargoes of smoked, dried, or salted 
fish ; timber-drogers from the United States, with loads of Georgia 
pine, a wood very highly prized in all these islands, where a species of 
ant greedily devours every other kind of lumber. These little pests 
evidently do not enjoy the resinous flavor of the pine, and so, when they 
make a meal of a dwelling-house or barn, or, as they have been known 
to do, of a good-sized country-town, they devour only the simplest, 
most digestible, home-made building material. It is almost incredible 
what devastation these little creatures work, as we shall see when I 
have told of their ravages in the island of Grenada. 

In addition to the craft above described, there were collected, from 
" a' the airts the wind can blaw " under heaven, Danish, Norwegian, 
and English barks and brigs ; Dutch, Italian, Austrian, and Spanish 
square-riggers, manned by motley crews shipped during voyages to 
the four corners of the globe — Saxon, Gaul, Scandinavian, Celt ; jolly, 
yellow tars apprenticed when lads before the mast of Chinese junks, 
Malay proas, or, for aught I know, Mozambique dhows ; Lascars, ill- 
looking fellows, piratical of aspect, who would scuttle a ship for the 
mere pleasure it would give them to drown its captain, as Shan O'Neil 
of the Red Hand is said to have set fire to old Dublin Cathedral for 
no other reason, good or bad, than, "Begorra, I thought the arch- 
bishop was inside ; " many men of many nations, speaking as many 
languages as might have been heard at Babel — tars of high and low 



140 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

degree. Nevertheless, in all this fleet, riding so proudly at anchor in 
grand and stately marine display, the holders of the America's Cup 
of 1851, the builders of the Puritan of 1885, of the Mayflower in 
1886, and, of more glorious memory still, the Black Ball packets and 
Baltimore clippers of a quarter of a century ago, were represented by 
a beggarly squadron of two- or three-masted schooners, a fishing-smack 
or two — all of which were sailed by down-East Bluenoses, or outland- 
ish men understanding just enough English to distinguish between 
marline spike and spankerboom. Verily, the words, " Oh, say, can you 
see, by the dawn's early light ? " had a sad and humiliating signifi- 
cance, not to say sarcastic import, as my eyes wandered over the road- 
stead with its mighty navy ; and I have humbly to confess that I had 
but little cause to hail with pride the few, the conspicuously few, 
patched and faded star-spangled banners I beheld fluttering in the 
trade-wind that April morning. 

Where, oh, where, are the Yankee ships ? Like the London 
police (according to Mr. Punch), conspicuous (in every harbor of the 
world) by their absence — and yet, there be cedars of Maine and 
Georgia pine — yes, and Pennsylvania iron and steel, and merchants 
ready to say : 

"Build me straight, oh worthy master, 
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel ; " 

and ship-masters delighted to hear and obey. Where are the ships ? 
and where the Yankee crews ? Turned farmers, weavers, hewers of 
wood — in short, landlubbers. 

I remember to have boarded a schooner at anchor in Gloucester 
Harbor — as tight and trim a vessel as ever passed out to sea between 
Eastern Point and Norman's Woe. Her skipper was a Swede ; his 
mate's speech betrayed him to be a German ; there were ten sailors — 
let me give their names, as they will serve to indicate the cosmopoli- 
tan, not to say un-American, quality of the crew : Crowley, Billman, 
Gevalt, Benshimol, McDonald, McFarland, Nilsou, Christiansen, Flink- 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 141 

feldt, Karl Foster. The first two, indeed, were able-bodied seamen 
born in Massachusetts ; the third a Swede ; and, in the order named, 
an Algerian, a Nova Scotian, a man of Cape Breton, a Dane, a Nor- 
wegian, a Fin, and a German from the Baltic Provinces. 

There was beyond doubt an American vessel — and a Yankee crew 
whereof two could ask for a ration of Yankee pork and beans without 
falling foul of their ^'s and V&. This is by no means an exaggerated 
case — it is a plain, every-day fact ; a sample of the crews to be found 
on board of every ninety-five out of a hundred vessels — coasters or 
open-sea cruisers — flying the Stars and Stripes. 

Barbados is one grand sugar-estate. Every acre of tillable land 
has been broken by the plough, and year by year yields a marvellous 
increase. For generations the wonderful natural fertility of the soil 
has been stimulated by the labor and art of painstaking, skilful hus- 
bandmen, until less than one-fifteenth of the entire compass of the 
island remains unplanted or unproductive. In view of this fact it is 
no exaggeration to say that, excepting those parcels of ground occu- 
pied by the dwellings of the living, or consecrated by the burial of the 
dead, Bimshire is one magnificent cane-piece in a state of perfect 
cultivation. Sugar-cane grows everywhere — on hill-sides so steep that 
one wonders how the furrows are laid or the harrow can be driven 
across the sloping fields ; it clings to shelves of rocks upon which toil- 
ing negroes replace the soil washed from the narrow ledges, year after 
year, by deluges of rain. It ripens close to the sea — so close, in fact, 
that in times of hurricane the skirts of the plantations are frequently 
sprinkled with salt-spray. Sugar-cane everywhere ! nothing but sugar- 
cane ! Planters and plantations, sugar, molasses, rum ! 

The philosopher who made the discovery that all great rivers 
ran past big cities, if he had had occasion, would doubtless have called 
attention to the fact that the best farming-lands are situated in coun- 
tries where the people devote themselves most heartily to agricultural 
pursuits. In support of this axiom he might well cite Barbados, for 
nowhere else in the world are to be found more diligent planters or 



142 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

fairer plantations. The island was settled by active, enterprising 
pioneers, sturdy English yeomen who set a value on land in propor- 
tion as it was fertile, not because it happened to abound in grand or 
peaceful scenery ; preferring to see their real estate spread out 
flat, or rolling in gentle undulations promoting drainage. They 
cared little for a country all set up on edge, or tumbled about in pict- 
uresque confusion, no matter how grand or magnificent the landscape 
might be ; setting little store by mountains and other geological phe- 
nomena and laughed to scorn the idea of crossing the seas to colo- 
nize picturesque parts of the earth, just as they would have scouted the 
idea of keeping their ledgers in blank verse, or corresponding with 
their factors in Spenserian stanzas. In their opinion land was created 
to be ploughed, not sketched or rhymed about ; they set high value 
on farming-land that could be fenced or hedged in, and mortgaged — 
soil promising such abundant harvests that any banker would be glad 
to make liberal advances on the standing crops. Having chosen 
and settled in Birnshire, they presently began to cultivate sugar- 
cane, to the neglect of all other growing things, year after year put- 
ting all their eggs into one basket — grandfather, father, son, grandson, 
pulling down their sugar-works and building greater, mortgaging, get- 
ting advances, until, by the manumission of their blacks as some will 
tell you, or the competition of beetroot sugar as all do tell you, their 
once prosperous island, a little island of which they formerly boasted 
that it paid its own way, became so reduced in circumstances that it 
now finds great difficulty in making both ends meet. 

Barbados was the last of the British West Indian islands to be 
affected by the decline in the price of sugar. The energy of its 
planters is tireless ; no improvements in the methods of cultivating 
cane are left by them untried ; they promptly experiment with new 
and costly machinery, expend vast sums of money in keeping up 
with the times, plant all varieties of cane, plough deeper and deeper, 
test the value of every sort of fertilizers — indeed, by the lavish use 
of guano, phosphates, mucks, and marls, in some places they have 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 143 

burned out the land, killing, by what proved to be mistaken kindness, 
the goose that was expected to lay golden eggs. The product of 
sugar on the island increased from 24,777 hogsheads in 1845 to 
39,290 in 1855, rose to 47,209 in 1865, reached 65,000 in 1875, and 
the record for nine months of 1884 shows a yield of 59,000 hogs- 
heads, with the last quarter of that year still to be heard from by the 
compiler of my statistics. 

What Barbadian energy, imported fertilizers, and improved sugar- 
machinery were able to accomplish during the last twelvemonth I am 
unable to state ; but this I do know : If the dismal forebodings of the 
planters, factors, and shippers of sugar I met in Bridgetown have, 
since I paid my visit to that town in the year of which I am now 
writing, found their fulfilment, then is Barbados to-day beyond doubt 
poorer by thousands of pounds sterling than before the crops of 1885 
-86 were planted. 

"What wonder, then, that at the time of my visit to their island I 
found the Barbadians in a fever of excitement and indignation be- 
cause the English Government had, shortly before, refused to accept 
a proposition (made by President Arthur's Administration) to the 
effect (the Senate of the United States concurring) that all the raw 
sugar grown in the British "West Indies should be admitted free 
into American ports, in consideration of the removal of duties on one 
hundred and fifty various articles of export from the States into the 
Caribbean Islands ? To say that the Barbadians were provoked at the 
action of the mother country would be to put the matter very mildly. 
They were, in truth, as "mad as marabunta hornets." This swarm 
of human bees neglected their regular business of gathering sugar 
from every ripening cane-piece, and fell to talking politics and politi- 
cal economy with the earnestness and righteous wrath of men whose 
liberties and pockets are in danger. Nevertheless and notwith- 
standing their anger (and it was hot) at the shabby treatment they 
had received at the hands of the home government, the Barbadians 
remained royally loyal to the English Crown, standing ready to back 



144 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

England against Russia, if war over the Afghan boundary question 
should finally be declared ; for at the time of which I am writing 
(April, 1885) it seemed as if the British Lion and the Russian Bear 
were no longer to be kept from rending one another in pieces, if ever 
they met near the gates of Herat. The plucky Bims lost no time 
in assuring Great Britain of their loyalty, and determination to see 
her through her difficulties. As in the time of Charles II. their roy- 
alist ancestors sent a humble address to that monarch, bidding him 
be of good cheer and stout of heart, reminding him, in his exile, 
that all was not lost, for, although all the world might be against 
him, Barbados was ever at his back, so on that very same day, when 
the Russian and English fleets arrived at Norfolk in Virginia, and 
were supposed to be watching one another with hostile purpose, in- 
tending to settle the Afghan question out of hand, within sight of 
American shores, a cablegram was sent from Bridgetown, as I know 
from trustworthy hearsay, to Yictoria's Government, containing brave 
words of encouragement and hope. 

We had scarcely cast anchor in Carlisle Bay before the bumboat 
people had surrounded the ship with so great an assemblage of small 
craft that it were useless to try to tell their number as it would be to 
count the flies in a sugar-house. But among the many surrounding 
little vessels, one demands, and shall receive, particular mention and 
detailed description. Reader, let me interest you for a few moments 
in the rehearsal of a truly polychromatic incident of my visit to the 
waters that wash the leeward coast of this mighty colony. 

In the stern-sheets of a barge painted blue without and yellow within, 
on cushions covered with red and orange fabrics, of more or less costly 
material and cunning workmanship, there sat in state a buxom dame — 
a washerlady of color, we at first imagined her to be. So portly and so 
plump was she, that it required the counterbalance of a huge chunk of 
coraline in the bow of her boat to keep it steady on even keel. She 
was so black, so shiny, her oily cheeks glistened in the sunlight, 
imaging dim outlines of her surroundings, like pictures seen in pol- 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 145 

ished patent leather. When a sailor in a red flannel shirt approached 
her closely, coming between the sun and her nobility, she seemed to 
reflect a blush. Her bandanna, wrapped in many, well-starched folds, 
was gorgeous ; her gown, flowered over with bewildering and exuber- 
ant patterns of brilliant coloring, was so resplendent that it was tor- 
ment to observe her, all so gaudy, in the full blaze of a tropical sun- 
light. The eye craved a fragment of black bottle or smoked glass. 
I was reminded of Lucas and his astonishment over Martine's de- 
scription of the apparel of Sganarelle in " Le medecin malgre lui." 
" Un habit jaune et vart ! C'est done le medecin des perroquets." 
We light-minded Barracoutans, who had scoffed at the pretensions 
of the Southern Cross to be regarded as a constellation of more than 
ordinary candle-power, irreverently dubbed the colored lady the 
" Parrot Queen ; " then, waxing more impertinent, called her " Aunt 
Polly." We watched her as two hatless, shoeless, almost half-clothed 
darky boys rowed her boat in a bee-ime for the foot of the Barra- 
couta's companion-ladder. As she came toward the ship the flotilla 
of small boats divided, even as the waters of the Red Sea rolled back 
on either hand at the approach of the hosts of Israel, and Aunt Polly 
passed unchallenged through the midst of the fleet, having as much 
deference paid her as if she had been the Collector of the Port. We 
wondered, and did her such reverence as became her quality, made 
obeisance, and said no more about parrots and smoked glass. Her 
majesty's barge, bumping against the foot of the ladder, brought up all 
standing, with a jounce that set Aunt Polly a-shaking like a bowlful 
of jelly. When she recovered from the shock and settled down, 
she perpetrated a smile — one vast, substantial smile, then a series 
of Fezziwiggian smiles, each more gracious, more open, more expan- 
sive, and much more elaborate than any I had ever before basked in. 
In her hand she held a bunch of wands stripped of their bark ; each 
wand was about eighteen inches long and as large round as a lead- 
pencil ; and all were tied with colored ribbons, which held them firmly 

together as Roman fasces are bound. The gesture was suggestively 
10 



146 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

regal, and withal condescending, and yet I hesitated to approach the 
royal barge to touch the tip of the waving sceptre ; my republican 
spirit recoiled from the thought that I might, perhaps, be expected to 
perform the further ceremony of kissing hands, as I had read Victoria's 
Ministers are expected to do when receiving their ministerial port- 
folios. I instantly made up my mind to accept no office, garter, or 
trumpery decoration whatsoever, no matter for what services or under 
what circumstances soever it might be offered. The purser, seeing 
my puzzled look, gave a knowing wink, and uttered the word " swizzle- 
stick." Aunt Polly, singling me out as worthy of her attention, ad- 
dressed me in a plaintive, beseeching tone. 

" Do buy ! Bes' swizzle-sticks, dear massa ! made 'em my own 
se'f, an' I know yo' won' 'fuse me. I'm a poo' woman, an' I on'y 
wan' jist a leetle money to keep me till I die. It won' be long, my 
love, my dove ! fo' I has to go to heaben very soon." (It did seem 
more than likely that, in the event of her earthly ties being severed, 
she would rise, balloon-like, and flutter away in that direction.) 

" On'y one shillin' for a whole bunch. I'd give 'em to dear massa 
ef I could 'ford it." 

Here followed much more of the same sort of sugary persuasion 
that we, in less genial Northern climates, call taffy, and Aunt Polly, 
passing all belief for volubility, ran on, crying her wares, entreating, 
scolding at times, at times pathetically appealing to us in our charity 
to bestow upon her the wherewithal to eke out the few remaining days 
of her earthly pilgrimage. She was eloquent, earnest, tireless, hope- 
ful, despairing, by turns. She brandished the swizzle-sticks, now to 
attract our attention, anon to wave off such boatmen as approached 
too near her person, again to prod those that let their boats bump 
against her barge. At last, she realized her fondest hopes. A gal- 
lant Barracoutan, opening his heart and his pocket-book, descended to 
the foot of the ladder and, in consideration of a goodly lump sum then 
and there to Aunt Polly in hand paid, became the owner of swizzle- 
sticks in number sufficient to swizzle all the swizzles that were to be 



ARRIVAL AT BARBADOS. 147 

swizzled at the Ice House in our honor that memorable afternoon. 
Aunt Polly's mission to the Barracouta being crowned with success 
she departed, waving us adieu, with a hand so black, so large and 
plump, it seemed as if her farewell was imprinted in our memories in 
the inkiest, heaviest, fullest-displayed type, and in capitals. We rev- 
erently signalled her our farewells, as she was rowed shoreward, the 
magnificence of her many colors blending and softening as she left us 
farther and farther behind. When she faded out of sight, and finally 
disappeared in the distance, I closed my aching eyes to rest them. I 
still beheld bright phantasmagoria dancing before my vision, as if I 
had gazed all too long at the glories of the setting sun. When I next 
opened my eyes, it was to examine, for the first time, a genuine Bim- 
shire swizzle-stick, which the purchaser of Aunt Polly's assortment 
held before me for my inspection and enlightenment. 

Knowing from what I had heard on every side, in all the islands, 
admitted by all men, that the Ice House of Bridgetown was, of all 
places, the very place at which to pursue any investigations into the 
mysteries of swizzle, I joined a party of Barracoutans who delayed not 
in the order of their going, stopping not to bargain with the boatmen 
nor to cheapen the price of ferriage to the shore, but set off at once 
for the land, some in blue boats, some in yellow boats or red, others 
in boats of many colors. In the two miles, free-for-all, straightaway 
race from the ship to the landing-place, which then and there ensued, 
it is of record that the gallant Barracoutan who had cleared out Aunt 
Polly's stock-in-trade came in an easy winner by many lengths. 
When the rest of the party reached the Ice House in search of swizzle, 
they found that he had been there for some time ; indeed, there was 
unmistakable, uncorked evidence that he had already been there twice. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 

A Favored People. — Statistics of Population. — Sugar, Molasses, Rum.— Street Scenes 
in Bridgetown.— The Ice Establishment.— War News.— New Old Friends. —Bar- 
badian Sociability. —A Well-ordered Hostelry. 

It was Abraham Lincoln who quaintly said to one who spoke slight- 
ingly of the mass of his fellow-citizens, deprecating the respect that 
great man paid to what the speaker called " popular clamor," " The 
Lord must love the common people, he made so many of them." 
By this same token the Barbadians are a highly favored nation, 
there is such a multitude of them ; in fact, when the limited area 
of their snug island is taken into consideration, their number is phe- 
nomenal. How so many human beings can find room to live and 
have their being, to say nothing of moving about, on so small a subdi- 
vision of this wide world, is a problem that cannot fail to awaken the 
astonishment of even the most confirmed and hardened statistician. 

It is as surprising as it is undoubtedly true, that Barbados is the 
most densely populated region on the earth. This island, with an 
area of 106,000 acres, contains a population of over 175,000 sonls; 
that is to say, an average of no less than one thousand and fifty -four 
persons to each of its one hundred and sixty-six square miles of terri- 
tory. The Chinese province of Kiang-su, which I at one time igno- 
rantly imagined to be the most uncomfortably crowded district under 
the sun, contains but eight hundred and fifty moon-eyed Celestials to 
the square mile, while East Flanders, in Belgium, the most thickly 
populated province in Europe, can boast of only seven hundred and 



WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 149 

five inhabitants to the square mile. Coming nearer home, West- 
chester County, New York, with a territory three times as large, sup- 
ports only four-sevenths as many people as are packed upon this 
thronged, man-ridden Caribbee ; and, finally, if the Empire State 
were as thickly settled as is Barbados, the Governor of that common- 
wealth would be called upon to administer the affairs of no less than 
sixty millions of New Yorkers. Notwithstanding Barbados is so 
closely packed that her citizens would seem to be justified, if they 
saw fit to do so, in hanging up, upon the face of cliffs confronting the 
sea and at all eligible landing-places, notices to the effect that there 
was standing-room only on their island, each successive census shows 
an increase in the sum total, as is proven by the following figures 
taken from government reports. In 1861 the number of Barbadians 
was 152, 727 ; in 1871, 162,042 ; in 1881, 171,860. Assuming that 
the average rate of increase noted for the twenty years above given 
has been maintained during the past five years, there are to-day no 
less than 175,000 persons, black and white, upon the island. 

Of this number less than nine per cent. (15,600) are Creoles of 
European descent, while the remaining 90-f per cent, (say, 159,000) 
are of pure African or mixed blood. It is a significant fact that dur- 
ing the decade 1871 to 1881, when the white population decreased 
more than three per cent. (506), the black and colored races in- 
creased more than eight per. cent. (11,324). I leave it to statisti- 
cians who delight in elaborate calculations, to foretell the precise year 
when, if the ratio of loss and gain in the census of the two races re- 
mains unchanged, the genus Man, species Caucasian, will finally dis- 
appear from Barbados. Is it foreordained that the descendants of the 
race once held in bondage shall, in the fulness of time, occupy the 
land of their taskmasters ? O year of Jubilee ! 

What wonder that the better class of negroes of Barbados, being 
compelled by circumstances to lead an active and industrious life, dili- 
gently care for themselves, provide for their hungry little ones, and so, 
gaining in self-respect, are proud to put on the appearance of prosper- 



150 DO*WN THE ISLANDS. 

ity, bear themselves more jauntily, and, as is to be expected, think 
themselves of greater importance and dignity than their listless, 
happy-go-lucky, unambitious neighbors on the other English islands ? 
No doubt, by nature they are as indolent as their brethren of St. Lucia 
or Dominica ; nevertheless, they earn their daily bread by the sweat of 
their brows. There is no alternative but this — if they will not work, 
neither shall they eat ; for in Barbados there are no groves of bread- 
fruit-trees and cocoa-palms, no plantations of cassava, yams, and plan- 
tains, no fruits nor vegetables growing wild on uncultivated lands or 
on unploughed hill-sides, as is the case in the islands mentioned, to 
supply food at all seasons of the year, to any who may list to put 
forth his hand, pluck, and eat, and be satisfied. The mighty host of 
common people of this colony must needs work for their living, day 
by day. That they do work, right lustily and with intelligent good- 
will, anyone who has visited Sugar Island can truthfully, and will, if 
he be a man of heart and unbliuded by pride of race, gladly bear 
witness. 

The first impression that a foreigner gets when he lands at Bridge- 
town is, that he has come to a busy, prosperous city, dedicated to com- 
merce and merchandising, founded and peopled by an enterprising 
race of traffickers, who devote themselves to buying and selling, and 
getting gain. And, indeed, such is the truth. For generations these 
citizens of no mean city have increased in riches by shipping continu- 
ally, to all parts of the world, incredible quantities of sugar, molasses, 
and rum ; in which commerce they have been more successful, and 
have become wealthier, than their neighbors. Circumstances that 
have conspired to interrupt the prosperity of other colonies have been 
of slight or no detriment to the inhabitants of Bridgetown, or, for 
that matter, to the people of Barbados at large. Their island has 
never been conquered since their ancestors acquired it by purchase of 
the Caribs (the year after Peter Minuit bought Manahatta), and dur- 
ing all the years when wars and rumors of war disturbed the peace of 
every other island in the Caribbean Archipelago, Barbados was never 



WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 151 

the object of attack, her planters meanwhile profiting roundly by the 
misfortunes which overtook the Antiguans and Kittefonians, for the 
destruction of the estates of the latter greatly enhanced the value of 
the Barbadians' sugar. Barbados, moreover, suffered least from the 
effects of the emancipation of the negroes in 1834, and the conse- 
quent disturbance of the labor market. She soonest recovered from 
what little temporary disarrangement of her mode of carrying on her 
industries she may have experienced at the time, and, of all the West 
Indies, most readily conformed to the new regime, beginning at once 
to adjust herself to the changed social condition of her lately freed 
host of laborers. Until within the past few years this colony has 
flourished greatly ; her people have enjoyed the fullest measure of 
prosperity and worldly happiness. Now ? Now it is different. The 
price of sugar has fallen. 

To say that the sky has fallen, that the eternal bottom has dropped 
out, would convey but a slight idea of what the decline in the price 
of sugar signifies to the Barbadians. Tell a Newcastle man that his 
coal mines are exhausted, a Mississippi planter that cotton is no longer 
king, and one will get some notion of how a Bim receives the an- 
nouncement that henceforth beetroot is to sweeten the tea and coffee 
of grown folks, and ruin the teeth of the little ones, in all parts of the 
world. To a Barbadian, sugar is everything ; without it he is nothing, 
nobody. He knows not either to plant, cultivate, or harvest any 
other crop. Indigo ? Cotton ? He gave up bothering with both, gen- 
erations ago. Tobacco ? He long since weeded out the rank weed, 
so exhausting to the soil — even to the soil of his fertile island. Rice? 
Maize ? Go to ! Your Barbadian is a planter, not a farmer ; he owns 
an estate, and does not work on a farm. Plant corn, forsooth ! As 
well plant beetroot, and be done with it. And yet, beetroot contains 
from two to four per cent, more saccharine matter than sugar-cane, 
and of late years its cultivation has been encouraged and stimulated 
in certain European countries (Germany and France, in particular) by 
the payment of government bounties to all farmers who may plant it. 



152 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

At one time, millions of acres of land in Western Europe were given 
up to the growing of madder, a plant from which the base of almost 
every color used by dyers is obtainable. Since the discovery of ani- 
line dyes, the madder industry, no longer profitable to anyone, has 
been neglected ; moreover, as the soil that yielded the largest crops of 
that plant was found to favor the growth of the subsidized beetroot, 
it is not to be wondered at that, in a few years, the profits of the sugar- 
cane planters of the West Indies — indeed, of planters in all parts of 
the world (including our own Louisiana) — vanished into thin air with 
the smoke vomited from the chimneys of their sugar-houses. Of the 
total annual product of sugar in all parts of the earth — an almost in- 
credible quantity of sweetness, by the by — nearly one-half is, in these 
latter days, manufactured from beetroot, grown in various parts of the 
world. Sugar-cane has other competitors in the substance called 
glucose, which is procured from starch, and yields, in turn, various 
compounds termed saccharates ; as well as saccharose, distilled from 
coal-tar, and these cheap products have, in many ways, superseded 
cane-sugar, and have served still further to reduce the price of that 
commodity. A century ago it was said that Barbados could produce 
more sugar than all the people of Europe could consume — could pay 
for, would be a more accurate way of putting it — for Brillat-Savarin 
states that, in his early days, sugar was sold in the shops of Paris for 
the equivalent of four shillings sterling a pound. He mentions a cer- 
tain M. Delacroix who used to grumble at the high price he had to 
pay for that luxury. "Ah!" he would say, in his gentle way, " if 
ever it should come to be sold at a shilling, I shall never drink water 
without sugar in it." The price rapidly fell to lower figures, for the 
author of Physiologie du Gout records that, after the peace of 1783, 
sugar was to be had for a shilling the pound, and he good-naturedly 
expresses the hope that his old acquaintance might still be alive, and 
able to satisfy his craving for eau sucree. The MM. Delacroix of our 
day can buy five or six pounds of sugar for a shilling, and the Bar- 
badians bewail the impending ruin of their islaud ; they call on Eng- 



WALES Iff BRIDGETOWN. 153 

land to help them in their competition with all Europe — sugar-cane 
versus beetroot ! They appeal to Gladstone and Salisbury in turn ; 
but these gentlemen, immersed in a sea of affairs — Continental and 
international affairs, Indian and Irish questions, Eastern problems — 
have no time to listen to the moans of the planters, echoing faintly 
from afar across the Atlantic. 

It is said the white people are gradually withdrawing from the 
island, and the statistics I have given lend color to this statement. 
It is true that some of the planters have already given up their estates, 
and returned to England to live upon whatever they may have laid 
up for a rainy day. Numbers of the younger men have emigrated to 
other countries, to try to make their way in the world ; some have 
come to the United States, and, my word for it, our country receives 
no braver, more resolute, or success-compelling recruits than these fair- 
spoken, quick-witted Bims. 

But enough of statistics ! I have done for the present with blue- 
books, government reports, and such dry-as-dust material ; I will get 
on witK my description of Bridgetown, where, as I have said, I landed 
in the presence of a great cloud, a black crowd, of witnesses, an in- 
numerable company of Barbadians of African descent, who volun- 
teered, en masse, to render any service under the sun that might be 
worth a tip ; I had only to name what I desired, and the whole popu- 
lace then in sight were ready to do my bidding. A dozen or more 
darkies offered to conduct me to different hotels, of which there are 
several in Bridgetown. A score of grinning blacks desired me to fol- 
low them to the station of the Barbados Bailway Company, for Bim- 
shire boasts the only railway in the Caribbee Islands — a railway im- 
ported from England. Not an American railroad, with locomotives, 
cars, baggage-cars, and conductors, but an English railway, mark you, 
with engines, carriages, luggage-vans, and guards. On this railway, 
goods-trains are shunted at the stations ; there are no freight-trains to 
switch at depots. Its engines squeal and screech, are painted green, 
are without bells or cow-catchers, and would look perfectly natural 



154 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

and at home at Lime Street or Euston Square. The Barbados Rail- 
way, which is about twenty-five miles long, is controlled by a board of 
directors, it is true ; but they elect a chairman, not a president, and, 
to have it as British as can be, the present chairman is an English 
knight (or, perhaps, a baronet) ; to wit, Sir George Chambers, who 
consults with the company's solicitors, not lawyers, please finally to 
observe. No doubt, if I had made my wants and wishes known to 
my colored brethren, squads, gangs, relays, hosts of them, would have 
been only too glad to show me where the cars of the Bridgetown 
Tramway Company (need I say the B. T. Co. is limited ?) ran for the 
convenience of passengers. I should not have had to ask twice for a 
guide to the General Hospital (founded in 1840), or for some one to 
conduct me to the offices of the "Water-works Company, where, should 
Thursday, the regular day of meeting, be packet day, the directors 
meet on Friday ; or to the Barbados Savings Bank, which has a 
branch office in Speightstown, where a venerable archdeacon of the 
Church of England occupies the position of official manager. No 
doubt I could have had the escort of a carriageful of colored persons, 
had I desired their company and paid their fares, to Codrington Col- 
lege, whereof the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Barbados is the 
ex officio visitor, and where certain graduates of the 'Varsities on the 
banks of the Cam and the Isis occupy chairs of divinity, medicine, 
classics, and mathematics. The occupant of the last-named chair, as 
was to be expected, is a Cantab, of St. John's, of no less distinction 
than senior qptime. The president of Codrington College, the right 
reverend the visitor aforesaid, has associated with him in the local 
council regulating the affairs of this academic institution three honor- 
ables, to wit : The Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, and the 
Speaker of the Assembly, as well as the Chancellor of the Diocese, 
the Archdeacon of Barbados, and the Rector of St. John's — al]f of 
them, by virtue of their rank, intrusted with the educational interests 
of this seat of learning. To them is joined one gentleman who has 
no initial handle to his name, nor even the complimentary tail-piece 



WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 155 

of esquire. He figures in the list of local councillors by his own 
name, and a good name it is — John Griffith. I mean no disrespect 
to Mr. Griffith's associates, nor do I intend to flatter that gentleman 
at their expense ; I only desire to call attention to what appears to be 
the fact, that because he is John Griffith he is deemed worthy to 
be councillor. 

There were numerous colored folk on all the street corners — yes, in 
the middle of the streets and between the corners — in short, every- 
where, in hopes of loose coin, willing to point out any public building 
I desired to see — to show me the Nelson Monument, which stands 
in the midst of a public place called, if I remember aright, Tra- 
falgar Square. Be that its name or no, this open space contains a 
greater curiosity than may be seen within the walls of the British 
Museum ; namely, a banyan-tree of great age and remarkable girth and 
size. 

I should not have been compelled to ask twice where the gas-works 
that supply the town with light were situated, had I wished to visit 
the only institution of the kind in the Windward Islands, for the 
darkies were ever ready to answer my beck and call. I politely de- 
clined all guidance, took heed of no directions, wagged my head in 
determined negation, made as if I heard not, and, like the deaf adder 
that stoppeth its ears, I listened not to the voices of the chattering, 
suggesting, good-humored people who ran at my heels as if I were a 
figure-of-fun or juggler, likely to juggle and perform wonders at any 
street corner and without previous advertisement. I held the even 
tenor of my way in the wake of certain jovial, drouthy, hungry, 
news-seeking Anglo-Barbadians, and, without let or hinderance, by 
following my good masters, who followed their noses, I came, in due 
course of time and inevitably, to the Ice House — the Ice Establish- 
ment, close by the door of which the Salmagundian afterward sat 
while making the accompanying sketch. 

The gentlemen turned into the historic institution, and I, following 
at a respectful distance, entered after them with modest face. We 



156 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

joined a group of citizens gathered around a bulletin-board, on which 
were exhibited certain cablegrams, containing, in a few words, the gist 
of London news, flashed via New York at the close of business the 
preceding day. Ignoring the commercial reports and sugar-quotations 
(of which there were many — all of them, no doubt, of great impor- 
tance to the Bims), I read with lively interest the " war news," as the 
latest intelligence concerning the apparently inevitable outbreak of 
hostilities in Central Asia was prematurely called by valiant islanders 
obviously eager for the fray. One long message announcing the 




.'/ 



simultaneous arrival of Russian and English war-ships in American 
waters seemed in some indefinite way calculated to involve me per- 
sonally in a possible international complication ; therefore I resolved 
that, in the event of my opinion, as an American citizen, on the East- 
ern question being asked for, any time that day, either to maintain a 
diplomatic silence, or, in view of the disorganized condition of the 
American Navy, to take refuge in such inoffensive statements as 
seemed to be suggested by the American doctrine of non-interference 
in foreign affairs. A gentleman who expressed his disgust with the 
lack of stiffness of Gladstone's backbone, charging that statesman 



WALKS. IN BRID GETO WN. 157 

with having gone wrong in the knees, declared that the Yankees 
would side with Russia, not because the Yankees at large believed 
Russia to be in the right, but because political parties in the States 
truckled to the Irish vote. On the other hand, his opponent, who 
relied on the length of Mr. Gladstone's head, and foretold the annihi- 
lation of Russia, stoutly maintained that the Americans would " stick 
up for England," and in support of this opinion quoted the words of 
an American naval officer who had, on one memorable occasion, been 
heard to declare that blood was thicker than water. This episode of 
the bulletin- board serves to show that the sentiments of the Barba- 
dians, concerning all matters affecting the welfare of England, are but. 
an epitome — a pocket-edition, so to speak — of the sentiments of the 1 
English themselves. Of this there can be no doubt, Barbadian loyv 
alty gives out no uncertain sound, and this whole matter may be. 
summed up poetically as follows : 

" They change their sky, but not their mind, 
Who o'er the sea a dwelling find." 

One of the gentlemen whom I had followed from the landing to; 
the Ice House, after eying me for a moment, said : 

*' Had I not the pleasure of seeing you on the Barracouta when I 
called on my old friend the captain, this morning ? " 

I told him that nothing was likelier, as I was one of the captain's! 
through passengers. After a few more pleasant words and an ex- 
change of cards, we became better acquainted, and my good friend 
presented me to his jovial associates, stating that I was an old friend 
of the captain of the Barracouta, and a good friend of his. "Without, 
pausing to give me time to make my manners, the gentleman, whose 
kindness to me I shall not lightly forget, said : " Gentlemen, I 
have just asked our good friend to join us upstairs." 

He had not, it is true, asked me in so many words, but meeting as 
we did necessarily implied that I was expected to join, and so, without 
further ado, upstairs we went, my old friend and I (the oldest friend; 



158 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

I had in Bridgetown) in the lead, with all my very good friends 
following close behind. What we did when we reached an upper 
chamber, spacious, high, and lighted by wide windows — all opened, to 
admit the balmy trade-wind — and had taken seats in a hall with tables 
set about with easy-chairs ; where the clinking of glasses fell pleas- 
antly upon the ear amid the sound of popping corks, the gurgling 
and fizzing of flagons and round-bellied or tapering bottles ; where 
there was a grateful, appetizing odor of cooking ; how I made merry 
with my friends and became as one of them, ate and drank, and talked 
of Bimshire and the Afghan boundary, of England, of the islands I had 
seen, and of those I was to see ; how I learned of the excellence and 
healthf ulness of sugar-cane, of the unwholesome qualities of beetroot ; 
what questions I asked concerning my friends' affairs, what inquiries 
concerning my own land and people I had to answer — all these things 
I have no space nor time to tell. I can only leave it to the imag- 
ination of my readers to picture the scene, to guess the tenth of all 
that was said and done. Only this I must record, bearing my testi- 
mony with gladness, and fearing not to be gainsaid, I found the Bar- 
badians graduates in the science of hospitality, masters of the art of 
entertaining, genial and sociable by instinct, self-possessed, courteous, 
and polite, as a result of early training ; in argument, fortiter in re, 
in listening and asking questions, suaviter in modo. Having but 
little in the way of public amusements to distract them, passing their 
lives far from the madding crowd, dependent on their own ingenuity 
to devise means of recreation, having much leisure time while the 
crops are growing, seeing the same people day by day, it will not be 
surprising if the Barbadians often find the days long and their sur- 
roundings monotonous. Therefore, being quick-witted and well edu- 
cated, accounting nothing that concerns mankind of little or no interest 
to them, these islanders read with avidity a wonderful number of 
books, read deliberately, critically, and with discrimination. Having 
abundant opportunity for consideration, and taking counsel with them- 
selves and one another, their thoughts crystallize into well-digested 



WALKS IN BRIDGETOWN. 159 

opinions ; moreover, being given to debating and arguing, as men 
who live remote from the great world are apt to discuss and reason, 
they polish their opinions by conversation. Therefore the stranger lis- 
tens with pleased surprise to the terse, well-balanced sentences, the 
well-turned phrases, they from time to time let fall in the full flow 
of ordinary discussion. Having abundant time in their isolation to 
discuss any subject at great length, they accord a patient hearing to 
their opponents, expecting to be heard in turn ; and yet there is noth- 
ing pedantic or heavy in the atmosphere of their social gatherings. On 
the contrary, the Barbadians talk as intelligent, thinking men used to 
talk in London coffee-houses and drawing-rooms one hundred years 
ago, in the days when the leading events of the times were discussed, 
the news of the day verified, its probability carefully weighed, its sig- 
nificance pondered, or, as I may say, sorted, indexed, and filed away in 
the pigeon-holes of memory, all carefully collated for future reference. 
So our forefathers conversed in the days of infrequent news-letters, 
when the result of the Battle of Waterloo, for instance, was borne be- 
neath the wings of carrier-pigeons flying to London. That was before 
the days of morning papers, with early and late editions full of news 
which may be highly true, if important — with afternoon editions, 
like caramel candy, fresh every hour ; before the days of extras, news- 
tickers, and all the maddening devices of that devil, the child of neces- 
sity, to prevent mankind from finding time to think ; before the inven- 
tion of interviewers, who scruple not to ring a man up in the still small 
hours to ask him questions of less importance, forsooth, to mankind 
than Dundreary's problem — " If you had a brother, do you think he 
would like cheese ? " We New Yorkers, Londoners, Parisians, indeed, 
shoot folly as she flies. The Barbadians, with enviable deliberation, 
like the much ridiculed grouse-shooting Frenchman, can afford to wait 
until " she shall stand still one leetle moment." 

And the swizzles ! Yes, the swizzles ! 

I shall discourse of them on board the Barracouta while voyaging 
to Demerara, for which port we sailed the day following that I have 



160 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

been writing about. Likewise of the pepper-pot, of which I partook 
with my Barbadian friends, at short intervals, as I lingered almost too 
long in their delightful company, with one eye on the Ice House 
clock, fearing to overstay my time, in my heart regretting the approach 
of the moment when I must continue on my tour of sight-seeing. 
The Ice House at Bridgetown ! — there one can read, talk, eat, drink, 
buy a needle or an anchor, see the workings of the ingenious machine 
which turns out enough ice daily to furnish a long, thick slide for the 
jeunesse doree of Barbados, if by chance any of the youthful Bims 
should yearn to practise the art of wearing out their Sunday-go-to- 
meeting shoes in the enjoyment of the pastime which Mr. Samuel 
Weller called " keep the pot a-boiling." 

In addition to the restaurant and cafe of the Ice establishment, 
there are twenty or more sleeping-rooms, all most comfortably fur- 
nished, delightfully clean, and, what is particularly noteworthy, are 
rented at half the price one would be compelled to pay for worse 
accommodation in the best hotels in either Long Branch or Saratoga. 
I have spoken of the Barbados Railway. It runs across tho island 
to the Atlantic coast to two little towns, known respectively by the 
names of Bathsheba and Bath ; to these watering-places the qual- 
ity of the island resort during certain seasons of the year to enjoy 
the fine surf-bathing. About half-way from Bridgetown to these 
fashionable resorts the railway passes close to Bagged Point Light- 
house, standing on a bold promontory that juts far out into the At- 
lantic, thence onward the scenery reminds one of the coast of York- 
shire in the neighborhood of Flamborough Head and Scarborough. 
I have not space to describe this wild and wave-worn shore ; it is well 
worth the journey to view it from the railway, and the trip from the 
city to the terminus of the road and return may be made in less than 
four hours. 

Barbados is really the only place in the Caribbees, unless we also 
except Port of Spain in Trinidad, where there is comfortable hotel 
accommodation, and where a traveller may abide in ease and comfort 



WALKS /iV" BRIDGETOWN. 



161 



in a well-appointed inn ; and although the island is wanting in all the 
grandeur of mountains and magnificent scenery, there is much to 
amuse the sojourner and occupy his mind, so that one may readily 
spend a week or more in this interesting place, and, when ready to 
depart, wonder how quickly the days have come and gone. It will 
not be the fault of the good people of Bimshire if, when the time 
comes to say farewell, the visitor's heart is not touched with sadness 
as he bids good-by to a host of friends. 




1 1 v - I 



Park in Barbados. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 



Bound for South America. — Pepper-pot. — An Apothecary's Prescription. — Surinam. — 
Equatorial Holland. — Dikes and Windmills. — Statistical Gleanings. — An Ameri- 
can Market Building. — The Shipping Laws of 1798. 




TEAMING out of Carlisle Bay late 
in the afternoon, shortly before 
sunset we lost sight of land, the 
Barracouta being then on a south- 
southeast course, bound for George- 
town, in the province of Deme- 
rara, British Guiana. The ship 
bowled merrily along, riding an 
easy swell, rolling before the trade- 
wind that carried a black plume 
of smoke from the funnel directly 
over the steamer's stern, where it hung over her wake long after she 
had passed far onward, out on the ocean. The sea sparkled in the 
moonlight and murmured as pleasantly as the waters of the North 
Atlantic in the calmest day of summer, or, for that matter, as the 
billows of the South Pacific at Christmas-time ; for, although it is 
not always May on shore or on the sea, it is nevertheless forever mid 
summer some place beneath the stars all the long year round. 

And now, before I take up the story of our further cruising, let 
me redeem two promises rashly made at the end of my last chapter ; 
namely, to tell what a pepper-pot is, and how to brew a swizzle. 



THE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 163 

Imprimis : Pepper-pot. In order to reproduce this surprising 
invention, which bears witness to the delicate and ingenious gastro- 
nomic perceptions of the Bims, one must first procure an earthen jar 
or Connarhee pot of generous proportions and comfortable rotundity 
of form, not necessarily outwardly decorative or ornate ; there is to be 
that within which passeth show — therefore it is only of the first im- 
portance to have the inner glaze of this chosen vessel without a flaw. 
This great crater must needs stand firmly on a broad and solid bot- 
tom, so that, should it experience even an earthquake's thrill (as is 
by no means unlikely in some of these islands), it shall cling to its 
base and greet the sunrise still. From the lower part its contour 
should bulge, in aldermanic outline, in fair upward and outward 
curves to its equator ; thence fall away in full, rounding lines, con- 
tracting and shrinking to a thick-set, apoplectic neck. Into the 
jaws of its yawning mouth there must be fitted a cover, carefully 
and judgematically notched, to fit the handle of fork or spoon of 
large size and long reach by which to fish up the snacks and tid-bits 
that will, when all is properly concocted, float inside. All the year 
round the pepper-pot must stand, day and night, on the sideboard, 
or on a special table provided for the purpose in the dining-hall, and 
small praise to the housewife who fails, at all hours, in all seasons, to 
keep it well stocked for the delectation of all comers. So much I 
know, by reason of personal observation and gratifying experience 
gained in the Ice Establishment at Barbados, as well as from my 
grateful remembrance of no less well-prepared pepper-pots of which I 
partook, in season and out of season, in sundry private houses I had 
aforetime visited in my travels among the Caribbees. How to fill a 
pepper-pot I learned the night after leaving Bridgetown, when we 
Barracoutans had turned in, as was our custom, on deck. Before I 
slept I overheard a shipmate tell his chum how, according to his re- 
membrance of what he had that day heard, the Barbadians prepared 
their pepper-pot. I listened attentively to the recital, intending, 
bright and early next morning, to enter the gist of his account in 



164 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

my log, for meet it was that I should set it down. From my note- 
book, therefore, I am able to copy the following extract verbatim, 
adding nothing and keeping nothing back. 

" I say, old man, that pepper-pot isn't half bad. I went in for 
such a lot of it — regular blow-out, by Jove ! Awfully decent chaps. 
One of 'em told me how to make one. Get a lot of peppers, cayenne, 
bird's-eye peppers, long, round, all kinds, green, red, yellow, such a 
jolly lot of 'em. Cut 'em all up. Makes my eyes water to think of it 
d'ye know ! — I say, did you go in for it? " A pause, and inaudible 
remark by the " old man." " Then you put this mess in a stone pot. 
Then, by Jove ! fellow didn't say — I forgot to ask if yon cooked it 
— ask him on return trip — then you put in vinegar and catsup and 
spices, all that sort of thing — dash of bitters. ISTo ; that's swizzle. 
By Jove ! I say, did you go in for swizzle ? " A very long pause ; 
audible snore by the "old man." "Then you take any blessed thing 
left over from dinner or breakfast, chop, leg of fowl, sausage, bacon 
(forget whether he said fish) — anything left of something too good to 
throw away or give to beggars, don't you know. Tomatoes, pickles, 
all that lot. Only fancy ! Any time you feel peckish — there you are. 
It's always going on, is pepper-pot ; you never wash the blooming 
thing out ; keeps for years. Decent old chappy that. Said it was 
good for dyspepsia and that sort o' thing ; only trouble is, you eat 
such a lot of it." 

To this formula I must needs add that casareep is a necessary 
and all-important ingredient of a right pepper-pot. Altogether, and 
under the peculiarly hospitable circumstances of his acquiring the 
knowledge how to concoct this "West Indian olla podrida, my ship- 
mate was not far out of the way. From his sketch of it, it will be seen 
that pepper-pot is a perennial free lunch, a perpetual zakooshka, a la 
Husse, a never-failing meal between meals ; for, as my fellow-traveller 
said, it goes on forever, like the brook in the song, or a Chinese 
drama, and I can testify it is palatable. Moreover, if you are lined 
like a salamander you can eat such a lot of it, notwithstanding its 



THE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 



165 



blistering, peppery qualities, and in the day ye eat thereof ye shall 
not surely nor necessarily die. 

Secundo : Solely for the benefit, behoof, and instruction of such of 
my readers, and only such, as hardly ever prescribe for themselves any 
compound or decoction that has not previously been recommended as 
a palliative, if not as a certain cure, by somebody's medical adviser at 
some time or other, under some certain circumstances, or other uncer- 
tain circumstances, I will set forth the recipe for putting up swizzle 
according to the formula that, no doubt, would have been written out 
for me (had I asked for it) by any apothecary in Biin shire. 




3-ss. 

it 
o.r. 



Spfs: red! jur>ipe.ns Wcc-. 

C^i*; angos-tara& 

Sac-eft.-. aP6. 

S aca : Citroni s fim.ei*. 

J\q,uOi-.at]d: carbon. - . (ScRasejapil 

See: ad fi'fi: 

Sig: PermuEfioYi in die. - , in. u.r\o gaulf: aff'er/ 
,_ A Medical Recipe. 



And now to proceed with the account of our cruise. In the geo- 
graphical nature of things the account of a trip to Georgetown, Brit- 
ish Guiana, is not properly to be included in the story of a cruise 
down the islands, for the voyage from Barbados thither is a wide di- 
version from the main line of travel, either up or down the Caribbean 
Archipelago. Therefore, no matter how sorely I may be tempted to 
venture upon a description of the scenery, and to record some of the 
facts concerning the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the 
northern extremity of South America, I find little warrant in the title 
of my book for wandering so far from my text. I am, however, some 
what consoled by the reflection that one cannot be expected to form 
very accurate or adequate ideas of South America by landing at the 
tip-end of that continent — at the city of Georgetown, at the mouth of 



166 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

the Demerara River — especially as our ship tarried there only long 
enough to discharge a moderate quantity of freight receive in re- 
turn part of a cargo of sugar, and then, after rescuing certain of our 
fellow-passengers from the unavoidable hospitalities of festive citizens, 
departed for Trinidad, whence we set out on our return voyage, resum- 
ing our delightful experience of cruising among the glories of the 
Windward Islands. 

Nevertheless, I must needs show by what a roundabout way we 
travelled from Barbados, via Georgetown, to Port of Spain. 

Forty hours after her departure from Barbados the Barracouta 
stopped within half a cable's length of the light-ship, anchored off the 
bar at the mouth of the Demerara River, ten miles from land. Halt- 
ing just long enough to take a pilot, she then proceeded on her jour- 
ney, carefully picking her way up the channel, worn in the bottom of 
the sea by the mighty flood that at all times of the year is poured 
down by this great river. Shortly after eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing we cast anchor in mid-stream, in front of Georgetown, the capital 
of the province to which the river the steamer had entered gives its 
name. 

British Guiana lies in the northeast of South America, and is 
bounded by Venezuela, Brazil, Dutch Guiana, and the Atlantic Ocean. 
It has a coast-line of two hundred and eighty miles, "an area of 
seventy-six thousand square miles, of which," says the author of " Her 
Majesty's Colonies," " there are about eighty-three thousand acres 
under cultivation." According to another statement, which is con- 
tained in a blue-book printed in 1884, by order of the government of 
the colony, there were on June 30th in that year over seventy-nine 
thousand five hundred acres planted with sugar-cane, over two thou- 
sand five hundred and fifty with plantains ; and devoted to other cul- 
tivation, cattle-farms, etc., more than sixty-five thousand acres. 

Again I say it is wonderful how little accurate information, or 
rather how much contradictory information, is to be obtained from 
books concerning Her Majesty's colonies in the West Indian Islands. 



TEE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 167 

The inward boundaries of British Guiana are undefined, for the colony 
extends from the ocean to an unexplored and almost unexplorable 
wilderness of forests, jungles, cane-brakes— inhabited by brutish, if not 
savage, races of men, infested by reptiles and wild beasts, swarming 
with pestilential flying things that make living or travelling in the in- 
terior of Guiana a torment not lightly to be endured by white men. 
It is estimated that the three provinces contain a total area of sixty- 
six million acres, an extent of country a little larger than the States 
of ]STew Jersey and New York combined. So little is known about 
the wild lands of this great back country that, notwithstanding the 
belief in the existence of valuable mines of gold and silver within 
their confines, no well organized plan of exploration or geological 
survey has as yet been undertaken, although it is vaguely hinted that 
numerous prospectors are wandering about the land in search of treas- 
ures, many of them only to find lonely graves — if buried their bodies 
ever shall be, where the vultures and other carrion birds may not come 
at them in horrid banqueting. 

The total population of British Guiana may be set down in round 
numbers at 265,000 souls ; of this number about 65,000 are either 
natives of Hindustan or their descendants, 4,393 of Chinese ances- 
try — the great majority of the people being Africans or colored Cre- 
oles. Of the aborigines of this part of the world, careful guessing 
puts their aggregate at 7,656. As these folks are nomadic by nature, 
inhabiting the vast, trackless forests remote from civilization, it is 
not practicable to obtain any correct tale of them. An idea of the 
woful state of ignorance of the inhabitants may be formed from 
the last census-reports, which state that 77,396 can, and 174,790 can- 
not read. Why wonder at this condition of affairs? The Afri- 
cans and Asiatics have no ambition to distinguish between their 
right hand and their left, they are not taught, and, for that matter, 
being regarded only as labor-saving beings cheaper to operate than 
machinery, have no need to know more than how to work for and 
not to steal from white men. The affairs of this colony are man- 



168 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

aged by a governor, who is appointed by the Queen of England un- 
der royal sign manual and signet. Judging from the condition of 
affairs in British Guiana, the happy-go-lucky life of the people, the 
simplicity of their agricultural pursuits, their lack of energy and en- 
terprise in exploring and developing the resources of the country, 
the peaceful disposition of neighboring nations — in short, the general 
quietude, not to say stagnation of industries and commercial pursuits 
— his excellency enjoys an immunity from cares of state and troublous 
politics. For these reasons we may regard him as a pleasantly settled 
and happy man, with nothing to do but to save all or spend all, of a 
salary of £5,000, to which is added £2,400 for contingencies, all paid 
from the colonial revenue. The liberality of the British Crown in 
disbursing the money of its colonial subjects may well be marvelled 
at, by Americans. 

Each citizen of the United States, assuming it to be within 
bounds to say there are fifty millions of them, contributes annu- 
ally, of his or her hard-gotten gains, the sum of one-tenth of a cent 
to support their President in a state of luxury which permits of 
his sleeping, taking his meals, and occasionally visiting his family 
and entertaining his and the nation's guests at one end of a hall in 
the Executive Mansion, where are the so-called private apartments, 
from which he sallies forth every morning for a walk to the other 
end of the building, where is his place of business — an admirable ar- 
rangement, enabling us to boast that our chief magistrate lives over 
his shop. Each citizen of British Guiana, and we have seen that 
there are about two hundred and sixty thousand of them, contributes 
nine-tenths of a cent to the maintenance of a governor chosen for 
them by the mother countiy. This executive resides in a Govern- 
ment House, excellently equipped, and receives a salary equal to three- 
quarters of the sum now paid to President Cleveland for services 
rendered by the latter to a country the daily revenue of which nearly 
equals the total annual revenue of the colony in question. The gov- 
ernment secretary receives a stipend of like amount with that paid to 



THE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 



169 



the Secretary of State of our munificent Republic. The comparative 
condition of the people of the two countries would not seem to warrant 




Native Indian of British Guiana. 



such economy on the part of the United States — a country in which it 
is difficult to obtain laborers willing to work for one dollar a day — 



170 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

whereas in British Guiana twenty -five cents jper diem is considered ex- 
cessive wages, rarely demanded even by the most intelligent and able- 
bodied workmen. But I have a natural reluctance to deal with such 
common-place every-day matters ; it troubles me to turn over the pages 
of blue-books and census-reports ; they are uninteresting reading to me 
— moreover, I fear to weary my readers with arrays of facts and fig- 
ures, deductions and conclusions. I have to admit frankly that I paid 
little attention to all these things when cruising down the islands; I 
had gone a-pleasuring, was seeking amusement, and therefore took 
little thought of political economy or questions relating to the pros- 
perity and welfare of mankind at large, being content to see the best 
side of things, wishing in my heart that everybody had reason, and 
was willing, to thank their good fortune that things were no worse 
than I saw them. 

The reasons that induced the Dutchmen (who colonized this part of 
the world as early as the year 1580) to take possession of the region 
they named Surinam are not far to seek. Except for a marked con- 
trast in vegetation and a wide difference of climate, the Netherlands in 
all other respects resembles Surinam as closely as a country crowded 
with thrifty Dutchmen can be said to resemble a land inhabited by 
spadeless, ploughless, trouserless savages, contented to dwell in prime- 
val forests ; lazy barbarians, who had never seen a windmill or a flagon 
of schnapps until the representatives of their High Mightinesses set 
their muddled brains a-whirling at the sight of the one, and stole away 
their wits and fertile territory by teaching them the taste of the other. 
The coast of Surinam is marshy and sea- worn — the currents of its 
rivers are as sluggish and mud-stained as the waters of the Amstel or 
the Maas. The waves of the Atlantic, for miles out from the low, 
level shore, are as thick and oozy as the sickly broth of the German 
Ocean along tide-water mark or the margin of the Zuyder Zee. 
What wonder, then, that as naturally as a Kanaka baby takes to salt- 
water, the Dutch established themselves in this equatorial Holland, 
where they fell to work digging ditches, raising dikes, intrenching 



THE TIP-END OF A CONTINENT. 171 

themselves behind earthworks to renew the never-ending battle of 
their race — the struggle against the invasion of the sea, disputing the 
question of riparian rights with the Atlantic Ocean itself. 

The Dutch colonists drove ploughs where Caribs had formerly 
paddled canoes, and in the fulness of time raised crops of sugar-cane 
on acres once overgrown with sedge and sea-weed. Doubtless, when 
Ten-This and Yan T'other could walk along the level tops of their 
dikes for miles and miles, or travel by canal from house to house, be- 
holding a score or more windmills in every direction, the trans- 
planted Hollanders felt as much at home in Surinam, all the year 
round, as he did in the Low Countries any piping-hot day in mid- 
summer. And so the Rip Yan So-and-sos and "Woutter Yan What's- 
his-names smoked their pipes, quaffed their schnapps, until the Eng- 
lish and French entered into a conspiracy and took, each of them, 
one-third of the Dutchman's colony, establishing themselves unin- 
vited in his vicinity, becoming his self-elected neighbors ; the former 
planting sugar to the northwest of Surinam, in British Guiana, the 
latter founding a penal colony to the southeast, in Cayenne. The 
English changed the name of the largest city in their possession 
from Stabroek to Georgetown (as they aforetime had changed the 
name of my native city from New Amsterdam to New York), but 
were content with Anglicizing the spelling of the name of the second 
town of importance, writing it down New Amsterdam, the name it 
bears to-day. 

When we arrived at Georgetown I lost no time in going ashore, 
the Doctor accompanying me. We both carried valises packed with in- 
definite raiment, describable as enough for two nights. For the first 
time since leaving New York we were to sleep in beds instead of on ship's 
deck, under mosquito-nets instead of beneath a canvas awning. The 
steamer, which we left in mid-stream, was presently to be made fast to 
a wharf, and the Doctor, sniffing suspicion of malaria in the air tainted 
by the filth floating by the docks, decreed that all those who would 
take his advice should take lodging at some convenient hostelry in the 



172 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

centre of the town, beyond the miasmatic influences of the oozy river. 
We landed from a small boat at a dock near an extensive, well-con- 
structed, iron market-building, lately erected by an American firm 
which, I was informed, had underbid a number of English iron- 
workers in a competition for the contract. 

Thinks I to myself, "If iron market-houses, why not iron 
ships ? " and was gratified, as was the Doctor, for so he confessed to 
me, to know that we Americans could compete in some things with 
the so-called pauper labor of Europe — in the manufacture of markets, 
for instance ; but I must confess our inmost souls were not strangely 
thrilled by a feeling of patriotic pride over the discovery. Had we 
seen the star-spangled banner fluttering in this foreign port from the 
flag-staff of the American iron-clad market-house we could, neverthe- 
less, complacently and without undue exultation, have entered the 
commodious, light, and airy building (well stocked with fruits and 
all manner of comestibles) and there, under the American flag, have 
driven bargains (as, in fact, we did) with coal-black British subjects for 
oranges, limes, pines, and mangoes, as many as we could get for a 
Queen's shilling. 

Had we, the Doctor and I, however, at any time, in any harbor, 
during our voyage down the islands, beheld a goodly, staunch, and 
sea-worthy ship hoist the American flag in the place of honor at 
the main peak or taffrail flag- staff, thus proudly proclaiming her 
native, or even her naturalized, American register — had we, I say, 
beheld so gratifying a spectacle, one so soothing to our pride as sea- 
going Americans, we certainly should have been tempted to treat one 
another to swizzle, concocted, as the Doctor prescribes it, with the 
spts. red. junzperis bacc. left out. So we hope to be tempted some 
day, when our countrymen insist on the repeal of the musty, absurd, 
aggravating, shipping laws of 1798 — statutes that have driven more 
American ships from the high seas than a fleet of Alabamas could, 
without let or hinderance, destroy in a decade. 



CHAPTER XV. 

DEMERARA. 

Georgetown.— Its Hindu Citizens.— The Tower Hotel.— A Meteorological Digression.— 
A Hindu Belle.— Her Face and her Fortune.— A Street Idyl. — Victoria Begia. 

Georgetown lies pleasantly on the east bank of the Demerara Eiver. 
Its northern suburbs extend almost to the sea-wall, over which, during 
northerly storms, the spray dashes, oftentimes sprinkling the gardens 




planted close to its landward foundations. The town is 
regularly laid out in squares ; those streets running at right 
angles to the river stretch inland a mile or more, to the 
margins of sugar-estates that extend for leagues to the east- 
ward. To the south, from the ends of the streets that run 
parallel to the Demerara, cane-pieces spread over thousands 
and thousands of acres of country, as flat and plain as a 
barn-floor. All the soil is a rich, alluvial deposit, as fer- 
tile as the fat loam of the Delta of the Nile, as black and deep, as 



174 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

easily broken by plough or harrow or cleared of stubble, and there is 
never a stone in a thousand acres to throw at a browsing cow, if one 
made so bold as to invade the patches of young and tender sugar- 
cane. The streets of the city are clean and tidy, and all the vicinage 
has a prosperous, well-to-do appearance. Most of the houses are built 
of wood painted white, with green blinds ; many of them stand de- 
tached in gardens enclosed by railings and picket-fences. George- 
town looks as a thrifty, well-ordered New England town would look 
(can anyone picture the transformation ?) if shaded by palms instead 
of elms, with an endless variety of tropical trees, shrubs, ferns, flow- 
ers, vines, and fruits growing in profusion around the dwellings. 

The most interesting objects of curiosity in Georgetown are its 
inhabitants, especially the host of Hindu coolies, laboring people, 
all imported under government contract from Hindustan, bound as 
apprentices used to be, articled to work on the sugar-estates for a term 
of five years at least. At the end of five years they are free to do as 
they please, but may bind themselves for a further like term, at the 
end of which, all who are disposed to return home are entitled to a 
free passage to their native land. If they do not wish to serve a 
second articled term, they may remain in British Guiana to work as 
other laborers work ; that is to say, whenever they may feel inclined 
to earn twelve or fifteen pence a day, as the negroes are free to work 
if they choose — as the Chinese do work, wherever they can get em- 
ployment. 

The total number of Asiatics in British Guiana is about sixty-five 
thousand ; the Hindus outnumber the Chinese in the proportion often 
to one, but all, or nearly all, of both races not born in South America, 
owe their importation into this part of the world to the demand for 
cheaper labor that arose when the price of sugar was forced down by 
the competition of other cane-growing countries, and the abnormally 
stimulated cultivation of beetroot sugar in Europe. Eor a time the 
low cost of cooly labor enabled the Demerara planters to make a 
profit on their crops ; after a time the supply of sugar exceeded the 



DEMEBARA. 175 

demand for it in the markets of the world, and again the cry went 
up, " Cheaper labor, more coolies." This clamor for lower-priced 
muscle and brawn is but another version of the old, old story that 
may be summarized as follows : Bad times, financial panics, high rates 
of interest, foreclosures, failures. The remedy : Cheaper labor, more 
coolies. In other words, mutatis mutandis — more greenbacks, un- 
limited shinplasters, trade-dollars. Inflation in another form — brandy 
for the drunkard. 

The Doctor and I speedily arrived at the Tower Hotel, being pre- 
ceded from the landing-stage by two darkies who bore our portman- 
teaus on the tops of their woolly heads. The sanitary condition of 
the Tower was satisfactory to my companion. The welcome of mine 
host, the hospitable aspect of the dining- and smoking-rooms were 
agreeable to me — both of us were attracted by the comfortable ap- 
pearance of the bed-chambers, and more especially by the promise of 
unlimited fresh water, to be had in spray or shower at any time, 
night or day, in well-ordered bath-rooms, situated on every floor of 
the hotel. We registered our names, became landsmen again, board- 
ers, not passengers — landlubbers, if you will — after our sea-life of 
nearly two weeks, and in a short time all our fellow-passengers joined 
us, and lodged at the hotel. 

All the year round, at Georgetown, the thermometer averages over 
90° F., as might be expected at a city built within six degrees of the 
equator ; but not even in the height of summer is the weather as un- 
comfortable as the climate of New York during the heated terms of 
July and August. I have this statement from our captain, and he is 
unimpeachable authority on any of the multitudinous subjects whereof 
he has reason or desire to be informed. The information he cannot 
give concerning the climate along the regular route of the Barracouta 
is not to be gained by poring over almanacs. He visits Demerara, 
on an average, ten times a year. During the summer months he wears 
a straw hat when he takes his walks ashore at either end of his ocean 
lane ; his thermometer abides steadily in the nineties, all the way up 



176 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

or down the islands, at New York as well as at Georgetown. In the 
winter months, between November and March, the captain may be said, 
meteorologically speaking, to have a lively time of it. The tempera- 
ture of Demerara remains at summer heat, it is true ; it is the eccen- 
tricity of the climate of New York that causes all his trouble and up- 
sets all his weatherwise theories. How is a man, even a far-seeing, 
judgematical mariner like our gallant captain, to keep run of the read- 
ings of a thermometer that varies 100° F. during a passage no longer 
than from Sandy Hook to Fastnet Rock ? How, indeed ? And yet 
that is precisely what the Barracouta's thermometer does, on many of 
her voyages, going or coming, between her dock on the East River and 
her wharf on the Demerara. It is no exaggeration to say that the 
captain's winter experience is fairly illustrated as follows : His friends 
who bid him good-by in New York wish him bon voyage over a 
piping-hot toddy, warn him to button up pea-jacket, great-coat, and 
ulster (he will need all three, at one and the same time, out at sea 
beyond the Hook), they advise him to keep out of the draught, go to 
bed early, and so get rid of the cold he caught when standing on the 
bridge, as he piloted the Barracouta into New York Harbor. In two 
weeks from that time his friends who welcome him at the George- 
town Club invite him to take an iced swizzle, give him a fan, place a 
chair for him by the window, tell him to unbutton his waistcoat, keep 
out of the sun, put witch-hazel on his sun-blisters, take a cold shower- 
bath, leave his windows and doors open at night, to the end that he 
may recover from the evil effects of standing in the sun on the bridge 
while piloting the Barracouta into Demerara River. So it goes, or 
rather so he goes, from New York to Demerara, from ten degrees 
below zero in the sun to ninety-five above in the shade, from chilblains 
to sunstroke, ulster to duster, from bare and leafless trees, frozen and 
lifeless meadows, to waving groves of palm and ripening cane-pieces — 
down to South America with fifteen thousand barrels of flour, up to 
North America with one thousand five hundred hogsheads of sugar. 
After a dainty breakfast the Doctor and I went each his own way, 



DEMERARA. 177 

to saunter about the town and see the sights. I have only space to 
extract from my note-book the accounts of such of my adventures as I 
think may be of most interest to my readers, and, first of all, I ask 
their attention to a sketch of a typical woman of an ancient race (see 
Frontispiece). Strolling along the shady side of a wide and busy street, 
I overtook a young girl. I should have passed her, had I not slack- 
ened my gait when I came within a few steps of her ; and, walking 
softly, measuring my paces by hers, followed behind the unknown 
wayfarer — respectfully and at a proper distance — to study and admire 
her costume, which was so neatly fitted to her slight and charming 
figure, so tastefully disposed, draped in such dainty folds and graceful 
gatherings, that the wearer of it made a most attractive picture. 

Her little feet were bare ; nevertheless she trod firmly, stepping 
lightly, with graceful poise, walking as only those women can walk 
who, all their lives innocent of high-heeled boots, learned to balance 
hric-d-brao on their heads when they were little, doll-cuddling girls. 
From time to time the maiden stopped to gaze into the shop-windows, 
viewing with eager, sparkling eyes the wonders, so attractive to her, 
displayed by drapers and dealers in fashionable stuffs. When she 
halted thus to feast her soul I passed ahead of her ; then halting, 
waited till she, in turn, passed me again. In this way I was enabled 
to inspect, with approving criticism, the object of my admiration 
from tip to toe, and from every point of view. In time I made a 
mental catalogue of the bewildering items of her apparel and orna- 
ments, taking memoranda that would enable an ingenious artist 
to paint from my description a full-length picture of her. Need I 
say I felt exceedingly diffident while following the young lady 
about the streets, and hesitated long before I ventured to open my 
note-book for the purpose of jotting down details of her word- 
picture I feared I might else forget. She caught me looking at her, 
and smiled quizzically, as if she found me grotesque or outlandish in 
appearance. Nevertheless she smiled, and I, taking heart of grace, 
whipped out my log and jotted down : "Teeth, regular, white " — and 



178 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

then, in admiration of her, I noted down as follows, as if I were fill- 
ing the blank spaces in her passport: "Mouth, small and regular; 
lips, full and pouting ; head, gracefully poised ; face (mark this note, 
made in her gentle presence) — face, beautiful, oval, Grecian in type ; 
nose, delicate, straight, finely chiselled (the last two words I must 
have cribbed from Ouida, one of whose intensest productions I had 
read on the voyage from Barbados) ; ears, small, well shaped, and well 
put on * hair, glossy, raven-black, straight and long, braided carefully 
with dexterous fingers, and tied at the ends with orange ribbons ; 
hands, small, and covered with rings." And now, alas ! I must con- 
fess it — this Aryan kinswoman of mine was as brown as any Hindu 
cooly girl in Georgetown, and all of her East Indian sisters are as 
dusky as richest rosewood, as brown and dark as rarest mahogany. 

She was not a daughter of Ham nor child of Shem, but, like my- 
self, a descendant of Father Japhet, a pure-blooded Hindu, albeit of 
low caste. 

. . . " A form 
Of heavenly mould ; a gait like Parvate's, 
Eyes like a hind's in love-time, face so fair 
Words cannot paint its spell. " 

Except for her sable color she might have served for a study of a 
Caucasian beauty, for the model of a Grecian Psyche, an Italian conta- 
dina, a Gretchen, an English boarding-school miss, a freshwoman of 
Vassar. In her "finely chiselled nose " she wore a gold ring more than 
two inches in diameter. To keep this ornament from rudely meddling 
with her pouting lips, she fastened it back beside her cheek by means 
of a silver thread looped over her ear. She had four ear-rings in each 
ear — one, a large device of gold, hooked through the customary pierc- 
ing in the lobe ; the smaller three hanging in the outer rim. About her 
neck were coiled full half a score of necklaces of beaten silver, and 
pendent therefrom were numerous coins and charms of quaint devices. 
Upon her head there rested a silver coronet, from which small pieces 
of money, gold and silver, and some curious medallions, hung down 



DEMERABA. 179 

upon her smooth brown brow. On every one of her eight taper 
fingers she wore two or more rings, and on each of her wee thumbs 
not less than half a dozen. There was such a mass of bracelets, ban- 
gles, and circlets around her wrists, I am within bounds when I say 
that three or four pounds in weight of sterling silver had been perma- 
nently withdrawn from circulation to be beaten and moulded for her 
ornamentation and adornment. Above her elbows, broad silver bands 
encircled her shapely arms, and tightly round her dark and silk-soft 
waist she had clasped a girdle, made by linking silver half-crowns and 
Spanish dollars together, all of which were fastened firmly to a broad 
belt of red leather. 

My reader may now suppose that at last my catalogue of the metal- 
work with which this young Hindoo lady was weighted down, as if 
encased in armor, is completed. Not so, however ; for on each and 
every unpinched toe of both her dusty, travel-stained, little feet there 
shone a gay, silver ring — wished on perhaps (romantic fancy !), by her 
own true love, who doubtless worshipped the very ground she trod upon. 
Nor will the list of this maiden's jewels be completed until I am per- 
mitted to mention that she wore massive golden, or gold-plated, anklets, 
so broad and heavy, so solid in appearance, that the astonished beholder 
might well wonder how she managed to walk and step so lightly. 
She wore a sleeveless jacket of red India silk, trimmed with narrow 
braids of gold lace. About her head was wrapped a veil of white, 
woven gauze, delicately embroidered with colored thread and fringed 
with knotted silk. The loose flowing continuations of this veil were 
wrapped and wreathed, festooned and garlanded, around her lissome 
form ; but no man hath wit enough to tell, and no woman who has 
not practised the art from her cradle up can show, how gracefully and 
with what surprising dexterity this Hindoo girl managed the streamers 
of light cotton fabric. Deftly she controlled the fluttering, misty 
length, now coiling it turban-shape upon her head, now binding it 
about her face to shield her from the sun, or, perhaps, the too inquisi- 
tive gaze of passers-by. At times she hid her bare arms in its many 



180 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

folds, or. wreathing it about her neck, drew the ends around her 
waist ; at times she looped it in front or knotted it behind her, and all 
this she did so easily, without apparent effort, and withal so uncon- 
sciously, it seemed as if she had but to wish the drifting cloud to wrap 
about and infold her, float behind or around her, and it obeyed, being 
governed by a breath, a sigh. The veil is to a Hindu girl what a fan 
is to a senorita of Castile. Deprive a Spanish beauty of her fan, the 
coolie belle of her veil, and both are ill at ease. They seem not to 
know what to to do with their hands ; they forget their airs and 
graces and coquettish ways ; their toilet is incomplete and lacking in 
expression ; the maids themselves are like birds with clipped wings. 

I shall not attempt to describe how ethereal and sprite-like the 
coolie girl appeared to me ; I was bewildered and bewitched as she 
tangled, entwined, interwove, and untwisted, yard upon }^ard of deli- 
cate film, all floating around her like a cloud of spray. Her skirts 
were of India muslin, soft and clinging, unflounced, and quite the 
reverse of trailing. All round about her lower borders were decora- 
tions of bright colors, embroidered with flowery brede of silken 
needle-work, and from beneath these scant phylacteries her little 
Hindu toes, all covered with rings, crept in and out like wee black 
mice in coats of silver mail. So soft were all her blended colorings, 
veiled in misty flutterings of cotton and fine silk, she lives in my 
memory, growing " in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment, the 
leader of the days, shining, gold-colored, lovely to behold — Ushas, 
Goddess of the Dawn." I lost sight at last of this Oriental vision ; I 
do not choose to remember that she disappeared in mortal fashion, 
by prosaically turning a corner of the street — I prefer to indulge the 
fancy that she entered her private cloud, as Olympian goddesses of 
old were wont to do, and so was wafted away by the gentlest and 
floweriest of gales. 

Later in the day, after I had recovered from the ecstasy and fever 
of regret at losing sight of the Hindu beauty, I was driven three miles 
from town to one of the most extensive sugar-estates in Demerara — 




A COOLY "WOMAN. 



DEMERARA. 



181 



in fact, in the world, where, in harvest- time, there are nearly three 
thousand coolies employed. I saw at this place sugar-crushing, boiling, 
drying, refining apparatus and distilling machinery of enormous cost, 
remarkable size, and bewildering intricacy of construction. All these 
mechanical wonders, the stupendous engines, the whirling, roaring, 
and clanging machinery, were as nothing in comparison with the aston- 
ishing exhibition that was revealed to me when, prompted by listless 
curiosity, I wandered a short distance from the sugar-house to look 




s / 



Leaves of the "Victoria Regia." 



over a low stone wall, and gazed down into an oozy ditch where the 
water was stagnant, covered with green weeds, and concealed by float- 
ing scum. There, in this unwholesome quagmire, I beheld a score, 
yes, full twenty score, of water-lilies in bloom. Never had I be- 
held so wonderful a show. I had seen the flower but once before, 
when having read in a London newspaper of one rare specimen in 
full bloom at Sydenham I set out forthwith to see it ; paid a shilling 
for a cab to the railway station, bought a first-class return ticket, 



182 



DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 



for I was going in state to see the queen of flowers. I gave willingly 
(I would have paid double) the entrance-fee to the Crystal Palace, 
and struggled through a crowd of sight-seers surrounding a fountain 
where the wonderful lily was blooming in all its splendor. When I 
obtained a short peep of it, I beheld for the first time in my life the 
Victoria regia • to see which in full bloom, people flocked in crowds 
from London as they would have flocked to listen to the last-dis- 
covered and best advertised prima donna, or to stare at the Queen her- 
self touch off the fireworks by electricity. And there, in a filthy ditch, 
near Georgetown in South America, were hundreds of the wonderful 
flowers, and I had only by chance caught sight of them, so little were 
they prized by people accustomed to the daily view of them. It is 
true, in Demerara the white folks would travel miles to stare at a 
heather-bell or an English snow-drop, could one be seen growing in 
any garden in the colony ; as for the great lilies, they were to be found 
in any fever-breeding slough. 




CHAPTER XVI. 




ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 

The North Coast.— The Dragon's Mouths.— Gulf of Paria.— Port of Spain.— The 
Street-cleaning Department. — A Chapter of Horrors. — The Environs of Port of 
Spain. 

HE voyage from Demerara to Trinidad was un- 
eventful, the sea was calm, the wind favorable. 
We sighted Galera Point, the northeastern 
promontory of the great island, at sunrise the 
morning after we sailed from 
Georgetown ; in three hours 
the steamer ran up to the per- 
pendicular cliffs and rounded 
peaks, and as she held on a 
westerly course, close inshore, 
gave us a grand and won-, 
: *. /_ derful view of the 

^-4 v ^l! -.. northern coast-line 
of forest-covered 
hills, the highest 
Hindu Barber. of them being 

Mount Tucutche (3,100 feet), rising abruptly backward from crags 
and precipices, towering, in picturesque confusion, many fathoms above 
a line of seething breakers. At intervals, nestling snugly on the mar- 
gin of narrow bays, under the shadows of the cliffs, were to be seen 
little fishing-settlements from which frail dug-out canoes, manned by ■ 
darkies, ventured out to sea a league or more beyond the steamer's 



, '^^ a "' , --^fe* '%^ V? 



,<igs£-v-- «c 



184 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

wake. There was a goodly show of smacks and pirogues, of all sizes, 
for the waters hereaway swarm with schools of fish. With snapper, 
familiar to the palates of ichthyophagi in our Gulf States; jewfish, 
sweet and toothsome when fried in boiling oil, as feudal barons were 
wont to serve usurers who dunned them too persistently for overdue 
interest on forced loans ; snooks, fish of little worth, as their name in 
some sort would seem to indicate. There are also parrot-fish, colored 
gold and crimson and royal purple, as gaudy and brilliant in hue 
as the flowers that gleam and flaunt their magnificence in the dense 
shadow of tropical forests. But the best of all the prizes drawn from 
the lottery of the sea by Trinidad fishermen is the barracouta, a 
name now familiar to my readers, some of whom may have won- 
dered how the steamer came by her novel title. Her owners, intend- 
ing her for West Indian service and thinking their ship worthy of a 
good name, called her by a name familiar all up and down the islands. 
The barracoutas resemble large pike in shape, are shark-like in then* 
rapacity, swimming with the speed of salmon, which, I verily be- 
lieve, can cleave the water with a rapidity of motion that leaves all 
other of the finny tribe far behind. It is said that at some of the 
West Indian Islands — Nevis and Santa Cruz, for instance — at certain 
seasons of the year the barracouta may not with safety be eaten, be- 
cause its flesh is poisoned by what it feeds upon. I had no scruple, 
however, and experienced no sinkings or deadly qualms when a large 
portion of this delectable food was served to me, sitting at table, the 
invited guest of a member of the Trinidad Club. It looked palatable, 
and I found it so , for it tempted me, and I did eat, taking no harm 
and having no excuse thereafter to take a little something for my 
stomach's sake — moreover, I was glad that, having shipped in the 
Barracouta, to have, in turn, a barracouta shipped in me. 

Before noon we came to Boca de Mono, a narrow strait between 
Entrada Point, the northwest cape of Trinidad, and Mono Island. 
This passage (the Monkey's Mouth) is the narrowest of the four 
Dragon's Mouths that open from the ocean into the Gulf of Paria. 



ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 185 

The other three are Boca de Huevos (eggs), Boca de Navios (ships), 
and Boca Grande ; the latter, as its name signifies, is spacious, being 
many miles in width, spreading between a small British island on the 
east and the Venezuelan coast, which rises boldly from the sea to the 
west of it. 

Through Boca de Huevos we steamed at full speed into the Gulf 
of Paria, passing between Monkey and Egg Islands, seemingly as near 
to one another as the grand hills that guard the southern entrance to 
the Highlands of the Hudson. So narrow is this channel (sailing- 
ships seldom attempt a passage through any but Boca Grande), and 
such the excessive steepness and height of the islands on either hand, 
that vessels are likely to be becalmed in it, where anchorage is ren- 
dered impossible by great depth of water, and so run a risk of drifting 
helplessly with the rapid currents, finally to be dashed against the 
rocks. The steamer held on in safety between Scylla and Charybdis, 
describing in her course a great semicircle as her bows veered from 
west and gradually headed southward, until she was fairly within the 
limits of the Gulf of Paria ; then, swinging round almost due east, 
she was headed for Port of Spain, situated about fifteen miles 
from the ocean. Nothing can be nobler than the prospect revealed to 
us as we skirted along the eastern coast of Trinidad, passing a group of 
five islets that cluster together midway between the ship's course and 
the gentle acclivity of the shore. They are called the Coloras, and to 
them the inhabitants of the little city resort to bathe, and breathe the 
fresh air when the town is hot and stifling, in the season of calms, 
which lasts from June to October. 

Trinity Sunday in the year 1498 fell on the last day of July. On 
that day there was not more than one cask of sweet water remaining 
in each of the six leaky ships of Columbus. The parching heat had 
opened the seams of his vessels — they were momentarily in danger of 
sinking, and much need there was to steer to a harbor where they might 
be careened and recalked, where provisions might be procured and the 
water-casks refilled. The distress of the mariners was pitiful; day 



186 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



after day had passed, and still no land appeared in sight. In his anx- 
iety, the admiral made a vow to call the first country he should dis- 




View of Port of Spain. 



cover after the name of the Holy Trinity, if he were shown the blessed 
land on that day. About mid-day a sailor at the mast-head of the ad- 
miral's own ship beheld dimly the summit of three mountains rising 
above the horizon. On nearer approach Columbus discovered that 
the three great hills were united at the base, thus figuring to his mind 



ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 187 

the " Three in One ; " he was reminded of his vow, and accordingly 
gave to the island the name of La Trinidad, and so it is known until 
this day. The ships of Columbus entered the Gulf of Paria from 
the south, passing through the Serpent's Mouths, for so are called 
the channels between Trinidad and the mainland. Tarrying a few 
days at the island of the three mountains, the squadron sailed away 
through the Dragon's Mouths to sea again, and Colon continued on 
his third voyage of discovery. Since Columbus' day many seafar- 
ing heroes have entered the Gulf of Paria, but none of them half so 
grand and famous as the one-armed, one-eyed sailor-man who passed 
through Boca de Navios on June 7, 1805, in the frigate Victory, one of 
a fleet of thirteen sail that had chased twenty-eight French and Span- 
ish war-ships from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Caribbean Sea. 
" Had Nelson," says a writer, in prophetic strain, " found the hostile 
squadron under the lee of Trinidad, the mouths of the Orinoco would 
now be as famous in naval history as the Delta of the Nile." Not 
finding his enemies at Trinidad, he sought them at Martinique, whence 
they retreated like flying-fish before a hunting-shark. He had hoped 
to fight them where Rodney destroyed the fleet of Count de Grasse ; 
but the allied navy escaped to sea, and so he hunted them back to the 
Mediterranean, overtook them at Trafalgar, won a hundred monuments, 
and died, leaving England an all but broken-hearted nation. 

About two o'clock in the afternoon the Barracouta cast anchor in 
the Gulf of Paria, in front of Port of Spain, at a distance of more 
than a mile from shore ; for no nearer to the landing-place might she 
venture, because of the shallowness of the water. Soon after our ar- 
rival in port, being on my way ashore in a small boat, I beheld near 
the quay at the foot of one of the principal streets of Port of Spain a 
stern- wheel steam-boat, a counterpart of the uncouth, preposterous, con- 
cerns that are to be seen crawling through the mud of the Upper Mis- 
souri. This machine, Neptune forbid that I should call it vessel ! — 
this peripatetic combination of summer hotel, liquor-saloon, and freight 
depot, five or six times in a twelvemonth, travels from Trinidad to 



18S DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

Bolivar, and sometimes beyond that town, eight hundred or one thou- 
sand miles up the Orinoco. I found it difficult to realize that up 
the Orinoco was down South. The currents of nearly every river 
in the United States, from the Passamaquoddy to the Sacramento, 
run generally in a southerly direction ; therefore it is difficult for 
Americans to conceive of a great river flowing toward the north. 
But there are Americas — North America and South America, for 
instance. The trip up the Orinoco is said to be exceedingly interest- 
ing and well worth the time consumed in taking it ; therefore, being 
of a truant disposition, endowed with a spirit of globe-trotting, I 
longed to secure board and lodgings on the stern-wheel caravansary, 
to the end that I might reside in it for a month while the aquatic 
absurdity scrambled into the interior of South America, reached its 
ultima thide, turned about, and jogged back again to the place of its 
departure. 

When I landed at Port of Spain, strolling from the wharf into the 
town, my curiosity was first awakened by the sight of flocks of tame 
vultures, limping about the streets, dabbling in the gutters, strutting 
on the sidewalks, quarrelling for the refuse and garbage in ash-barrels 
and muck-heaps. They flapped their ill-omened wings in short flights, 
from curb to curb, from pavement to house-top, where they brooded, 
like the filthy rumors Yirgil rhymes about. Did a mangy tramp-dog 
unearth a rotten bone, a bald-headed vulture sailed down upon him 
and robbed him of his prize. Did an outcast cat catch a mouse, be- 
fore she could scramble over a fence with her prey one of these 
feathered sneak-thieves bolted with her rations, hobbling, meantime, 
as fast as it could go to escape from its greedy companions, who came 
limping after it, with outstretched necks and gaping beaks. These 
vultures are very tame ; indeed, their tameness was horrible to me — it 
seemed immoral to suffer them to walk beside you — they looked like 
familiar spirits or temptations of the evil one. They feared not the 
face of man ; their impudence was simply fiendish. They neither re- 
spected nor considered me more than they did a lamp-post ; moreover, 



ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 189 

when I trod too near one of them he pecked at the calves of my legs 
viciously, and looked a torrent of unutterable profanity after me. 
These birds are utterly disreputable, by instinct, in appearance, and 
habits, regardless of the company they keep, and shocking in their oc- 
cupation. Nevertheless, their lives and liberties are protected by law ; 
no one is permitted to interfere with them in any way or annoy them 
in their pursuit of such happiness as they can find in their congenial 
employment as city scavengers, for by following this vocation they 
earn their living, unassisted by Italians or other broom-compelling 
voters. Discoursing of vultures puts it into my mind to speak of 
other uncanny curiosities peculiar to this part of the world. In the 
forests and, as some retailers of wonders maintain, in the gardens of 
Trinidad are vampires. Many and dreadful are the tales of the an- 
nual tribute of human blood exacted by these loathsome creatures 
from coolies and negroes who happen to fall asleep without being care- 
ful to protect their bare toes from the lancet teeth and cupping in- 
struments of these imps of darkness. I can readily believe that the 
shoeless inhabitants of the back country frequently fall a prey to vam- 
pires — indeed, there are many recorded cases of deaths resulting from 
their bites, and I determined to guard against their onslaught in the 
event of my visiting the purlieus infested by them, either by sleeping, 
cow-boy fashion, with my boots on, or, as a more comfortable precau- 
tion, reversing the order of my lying down, to stow my feet under my 
pillow with my other valuables ; videlicet, my watch and pocket-book. 
Talking of vampires naturally reminds me that while at the club 
in Trinidad I was told a horrible story how, a short time before, near 
the mouth of the Orinoco, three negroes were killed by electric eels 
(gymnoti). That this tragedy was by no means a rare occurrence I 
readily believe, for the shock communicated by the battery of this 
monster is powerful enough to stun a man or a mule ; if, indeed, it does 
not kill the victims outright, they sink, in a state of temporary paraly- 
sis, and are drowned before regaining the iise of muscles or returning 
to consciousness. 



190 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

It must not be imagined, however, from my spinning such yarns 
concerning vultures and other frightful creatures, that while at Port of 
Spain I supped full of horrors ; nor do I intend to convey the idea 
that Trinidad alone, of all the places I visited in the "West Indies, is in 
particular infested by monstrosities that prey on mankind. At Mar- 
tinique I could have scared up a fer-de-lance, as the vile serpent is 
called, whose bite is as deadly as that of the cobra. At any of the 
islands I could, no doubt, have unearthed grewsome and venom- 
ous things, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, and chigoes. All these 
dreadful things, and many more, are to be seen in the Caribbees, no 
doubt, but I had as soon thought of going in quest of them as of go- 
ing a-slumming in the lowest, filthiest dives of a great city. I had, 
moreover, no craving to disgust my sight, nor morbid desire to insult 
my sensibilities, by visiting the lepers in their lazar-houses, or the 
wretched coolies smitten with elephantiasis, nor to gratify my curiosity 
by invading the awful seclusion of the Yaws Hospitals, where living 
souls are held in torment by festering bodies that might better in 
mercy be laid quick in the earth. I saw none of all these awful sights, 
for I took heed where I set my feet, going gingerly in the long grass 
or among the weeds, and in this way, avoiding the scorpions and other 
reptiles, I went my w r ay in peace and quietness. As for the suffering 
souls, I could pity them without staring at them in their torments. 
There was an infinity of beautiful things to satisfy the mind, and fill 
the heart with gladness and content. Life was delicious and sensuous. 
The world seemed as fair and restful as if the Old Serpent, the father 
of fer-de-lance and patron of all hideous things, and not my ances- 
tors, had been evicted from Eden. 

But to return to my walk through Port of Spain, Puerto de los 
Hispafioles, as the followers of Columbus called it — Conquerabia 
being the name given it by its early inhabitants, as we learn from 
Sir Walter Raleigh. It is the capital of the colony, and contains 
nearly thirty-two thousand inhabitants. Owing to the daily arrival 
and departure of vessels coming from and departing to all parts of 



ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 



191 



the globe, Port of Spain is a town of bustle and no inconsiderable 
business activity. Bounding the city on the east and north, stretch- 
ing between the houses and the hills, a broad savannah rises gently 
toward the inland; across this level prairie, called Queen's Park, 
a part of which is reserved as a grand race-course, is the Botanic 
Garden, and within its enclosures, surrounded by lawns and flower- 
beds, stands the govern- 
or's palace, a fine man- 
sion, built in the style of 
the country residences of 
English nobles of a cen- 
tury ago. Behind this 
park of the Palace of St. 
Ann mountains rise in 




1 s ■'■ ~'i- -fey: 






^^^0"m^ 




Road in Front of Governor's Palace. 



abrupt ascent, grandly overlooking many cocoa-plantations and groves 
of palm-trees. Here and there cane-pieces appear in the fertile in- 
tervals, composing a landscape of inconceivable loveliness. As you 
look landward from the deck of a vessel anchored in the road- 
stead, it is impossible to imagine a grander picture or a fairer site 
for a prosperous city than is presented by the environments of the 
chief port and seat of government of this thriving colony. In the 
centre of Port of Spain, in Brunswick Square, are the public build- 
ings and the cathedral of the Church of England ; the Roman Cath- 
olic cathedral being situated on Marine Square, a broad promenade 



192 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

shaded by rows of trees and embellished by a fountain that flows 
in front of the Hotel de Paris, the oldest house of entertainment 
in the place. The Trinidad Club has its quarters in one of the 
business streets, and as I enjoyed the privileges of that most hospit- 
able institution during my stay in Port of Spain I can speak, from 
gratifying experience, of the comfortable arrangement of the building 
and the good-fellowship and the courtesy of its members. I did not 
find time to visit the Pitch Lake of La Brea, nor the Mud Volcanoes of 
Monkey Town ; therefore I had best dismiss them from my narrative 
with the statement that, had time served, I could have gone to both 
these natural wonders as well as to the Maracas Waterfall (three hun- 
dred and fifty feet in height) by steam-boat or train, leaving Port of 
Spain one day and returning the next. I did have time, however, to 
goto San Fernando, the second city of importance in Trinidad, the cen- 
tre of the sugar-producing district of Naparima ; journeying thither by 
rail, through a most interesting country, passing many quaint and pict- 
uresque negro and Hindu settlements, hurrying through magnificent 
forests and jungles of bamboo, whisking by innumerable plantations 
of cocoa, sugar-cane, and orchards of ripening fruits. It was harvest, 
crop-time, and fruit-season in Trinidad ; therefore, and by that token, 
all the darkies were fat and jolly — the coolies were less cadaverous- 
looking than at other seasons of the year. These Asiatics, even in 
cane-time, however, do not lose their characteristically emaciated ap- 
pearance, but at all times look, as it is to be expected human beings 
will appear, who are descended from the inhabitants of a densely 
populated country where the common people are forced to live, as 
Hindus have lived for generations, on the shortest rations of innu- 
tritions food. As applied to India, the theory of natural selection im- 
plies the survival of those individuals, and only those, who inherit 
the faculty of sustaining life on the smallest daily allowance of badly 
prepared eatables. Hindus cursed with human appetites or delicate 
digestive organs must inevitably succumb earliest in the struggle for 
existence. What wonder, then, that a cooly field-hand, be he never 



ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 193 

so willing to labor (and he is, by inheritance, industrious), is neverthe- 
less unable to perform as much work in a month as a lusty negro 
will do in one-third the time. 
13 



CHAPTER XVII. 



A HINDU TOWN. 



San Fernando. — A Cooly Town. — The Contract-labor System. — A Silver-smith. — 
Bangle-making. — A Cooly Doctor-shop. — The Market-place. — Curry in all Shapes. 

San Fernando (thirty miles or more from Port of Spain) is a 
large town, with a population of over six thousand ; its inhabitants 
seem to be prosperous, and go about the streets with the air of men ab- 
sorbed in the pursuit of their daily occupations. In the thoroughfares 
one sees a few native American Indians of mixed blood, hosts of 
Africans, crowds of Asiatics (Hindus and Chinese), and a sprinkling 
of people of European descent. Of greatest interest to me was that 
suburb of the city which is occupied by the cooly people, who congre- 
gate by themselves, avoiding as much as possible the society of all man- 
kind but their own countrymen. Of these coolies, or laboring people 
(for that is the meaning of their name), there are many thousands in 
Trinidad, who are either emigrants from India or the children born of 
imported parents. I am unable to give their exact number, but from 
the fact that, during ten years, 1874-1883, inclusive, upward of twenty- 
five thousand Hindus were introduced into the colony under the terms 
of the contract-labor laws, and nearly fifty thousand children were 
born of cooly parents, it will be seen that this race forms no inconsid- 
erable proportion of the sum total of the entire population of Trinidad. 
In 1839 the British Government appointed emigration agents at Cal- 
cutta to superintend and regulate the exportation, under certain well- 
defined and carefully considered restrictions, of all able-bodied coolies 
who were desirous of crossing the sea in search of work they could not 



A HINDU TOWN. 



195 



find to do at home. On their arrival in the colonies the immigrants 
are inspected hy the health-officers, and none are permitted to land 
in either Demerara or Trinidad until they have bound themselves to 
work for a term of years on plantations to which they are assigned by 
government. In making this allotment, great care is exercised not to 



T f / ;!r '^ v ; ' ^:".''-"'H v "7; j v"' 







T;§fi|ll5|ji 



Cooly Field-hand. 



separate families or friends, and in the event of the marriage of a cooly 
woman at any time during her indentured term, she follows her husband 
to the place of his employment. Planters who desire to secure the ser- 
vices of these field-hands are obliged to execute a contract with the co- 
lonial authorities, agreeing to provide food, clothing, suitable lodging, 



196 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

and medical attendance, for their laborers. The coolies are compelled to 
labor six working days, of seven and a half hours each, in every week, 
receiving about thirteen cents for every day they faithfully perform 
their task. At first an equal number of cooly men and women were 
imported to the colonies, but in 1S40 the proportion of women was re- 
duced to one-third of the whole number of men. In 1844 the indent- 
ured term of service, which until then had been three years, was 
extended to five years, and it was provided that in all subsequent in- 
dentures there should be inserted a clause guaranteeing, to all Hindus 
who desired to return home at the end of their term, a free passage to 
India. In 1853 the law was further amended to permit the coolies to 
reindenture themselves for a second period of five years ; or, if so dis- 
posed, to commute any part of their unfulfilled contract by the re- 
payment of a proportionate part of their indenture-fee. The colonial 
government reserves the right to remove the laborers from any planta- 
tion where they are being badly treated, and reindenture them to 
more humane employers. Any cooly who refuses to work is fined a 
day's pay for each and every day he neglects to perform his bounden 
duty, and all of these laborers are indentured to the plantation, and 
not to the planter, so that changes in the ownership of plantations are 
not necessarily attended, nor often followed, by the removal of the 
coolies, who go with the land, as did the Russian serfs before the day 
of their emancipation. 

I give the following official figures as evidence of the growth of 
this colony, not as convincing testimony to the soundness of the theory 
ventilated on all sides, that " contract labor has been the salvation of 
the planters of Trinidad ; " and yet the figures do in some sort justify 
the claims made that the introduction of cooly labor has increased the 
prosperity of the island. In 1S38 the population numbered 39,328, 
and increased in forty-three years to 153,123, as is shown by the cen- 
sus of 1881. During the same period commerce has taken wonderful 
strides ; the export of sugar has increased fivefold, and that of cocoa 
threefold. 



A HINDU TOWN. 



197 



Walking through the cooly quarter of San Fernando, I could 
scarcely realize that I had not been transported from the Western 







to the Eastern Hemisphere by the mysterious art of an occultist sor- 
cerer who had carried me from the New to the Old World without 



198 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

my special wonder. Certainly, everything and everybody I beheld 
were strange enough to warrant such a confusion of localities in my 
mind. The cooly men wear turbans, or a kind of nightcap — " an old 
wife's mutch," the Scotch would call it — jackets, short trousers of white 
cotton cloth, and, except for blackness, their faces are characteristically 
European. Their features are the features of thin and emaciated 
Italians, Frenchmen, Englishmen — in a word, Caucasians. Some have 
full beards, others mustaches and imperials ; not a few wear mutton- 
chop, Dundreary, or coachman whiskers. If one were to seize at ran- 
dom the cadaverous, under-sized, light-in-weight, but respectable-look- 
ing men to be seen on Broadway, Piccadilly, Rue de Rivoli, or Unter 
den Linden, clothe them in short, unstarched, white trousers, monkey- 
jackets, and turbans, blacken the faces, hands, and feet of them, there 
would be little trouble in passing these Europeans off as an average 
lot of cooly men such as I saw in the Hindu quarters of San Fer- 
nando. 

The houses of these people are small and slightly built, and furnish- 
ing the best of them involves an insignificant expenditure ; there is no 
glass in the windows, there are no chimneys (all cooking being done 
in the open air), no beds, tables, or chairs, the inmates sleep on the 
floor, eat the few morsels of their scanty meals while seated on their 
heels, cuddling around a few jugs and dishes of the rudest earthen- 
ware set in the middle of the room. 

I was much entertained and interested in watching a cooly man at 
work, squatting on his heels in the open door-way of a wrecked and dis- 
jointed shanty. He was bending over an earthen-ware furnace, in size 
and shape resembling a top-hat, beside which there was a block of 
wood (twelve or fifteen inches square, overlaid with a fragment of 
iron boiler-plate half an inch in thickness) which served as an anvil, 
and a few rude tools ; these, with the flower-pot furnace, completed the 
outfit of a Hindu silver-smith, for of that craft was the object of my 
curiosity. The implements of this artificer's profession were ancient 
and worn, cumbersome and unwieldy ; nevertheless, he plied his trade 



A HINDU TOWN. 199 

with no little skill, and what he lacked in conveniences and ingenuity, 
he made up for by perseverance and diligence. 

One of my companions, having made a bargain with the smith, 
handed him three English florins which he desired to have manufac- 
tured into one bangle of the choicest East Indian design and workman- 
ship. The cooly man heated the coins, cut them into narrow pieces, 
of which he welded the ends together, using hammer and anvil, thus 
making a bar four or five inches long, and, as I remember, twO or 
three lines in width and thickness. Covering one end of this strip 
of metal with damp clay, to protect his fingers from the heat, the 
bangle-maker stuck the silver into the diminutive charcoal fire, which 
he set aglow by blowing through a tube similar in appearance to a 
glass-blower's pipe. When the metal was at a dull-red heat, he beat 
it soundly, forging it round and smooth, to the diameter of telegraph- 
wire ; then, carefully bending it in a circle, joined the two ends, weld- 
ing them together neatly and with despatch. This done, and the 
joint having been covered with a rough mass of hot silver fashioned 
into a ball of the size of a small cherry, the Hindu held out the half- 
finished trinket for our inspection and approval. He next smoothed 
and polished the surface of the ball by hammering ; then he graved 
and stamped it with various dies, cutting simple, conventional patterns 
of irregular design. Next, having selected a small silver serpent from 
an assortment of ready-made devices and charms which he kept in a 
cocoa-nut shell, he plunged it into the fire, and blew through his blow- 
pipe until the cobra became blood-red. Pinching the reptile's tail 
between two bits of moist clay, the Hindu drew it from the fire, and, 
before it lost its angry hue, deftly corkscrewed the emblem of immor- 
tality around the wire of the bangle in four complete coils, all the time 
tapping the snake here and there gently with his mallet, in this way 
fastening it securely in its place. Plunging the ornament into a cala- 
bash of cocoa-nut oil, he waited till the serpent ceased hissing, and 
the Indian bracelet was then ready to be clasped on the wrist of — 
whomsoever my gallant gentleman had in his mind when he found 



200 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

it in his heart to give the order for it. The jeweller handed the 
bangle to my friend, and requested the payment of three shillings ; 
one for business, he explained, tapping himself significantly on the 
breast-bone, and two for hen, indicating the coiled serpent. He thus 
gave us to understand that he charged two shillings for the silver of 
which the coiling reptile was made, and one shilling only for btcsi- 
ness, that is to say, for the time and labor expended in the manu- 
facture of the trinket. The price was reasonable enough, for at nine 
shillings the bangle would have been cheap, even if the metal in her 
(the serpent) had been of base alloy, and we had no reason to believe 
it was not of sterling silver ; moreover, we knew that the wire of the 
ornament contained the six shillings' worth of British coin which my 
companion had supplied from his own pocket. 

Across the way from the shop of the Hindu silver-smith we no- 
ticed a cooly woman squatting in the door- way of a shanty of more 
respectable and attractive appearance. It was larger than the dwell- 
ings in its immediate neighborhood and had an air (I was about to say 
of comfort, but that would be a misapplication of the word, and all 
that it implies and certifies to, in the minds of Europeans) — of greater 
convenience, let me say, than the other houses. We found, upon peer- 
ing into its open door, that it was to a certain extent better fur- 
nished, more carefully swept and ordered, than the abode of the jew- 
eller across the street. The cooly woman was loaded down — adorned 
would faintly express her preposterous state of ornamentation — with 
all the different varieties of precious metal- work known to the members 
of the trade of her neighbor of whom my friend had just procured the 
silver bangle. She was truly a sight to be seen — and if seen but once, 
never to be forgotten. At first I was inclined to believe that she had 
on her person the entire stock and capital of the largest wholesale jew- 
ellery establishment on the island, and had been placed in the door-way 
to make exhibition of the great and varied assortment offered for sale 
by the wealthiest house in its line of business. Such, however, was not 
the case — she was a Hindu doctor's wife ; not only the companion of 




HINDU DOCTOK AND WIFE. 



A HINDU TOWN. 201 

his joys, the partner of his sorrows, his better half and, evidently, all 
his treasures — she was also his business partner, the drummer for the 
concern, and the sign-board to attract custom to his dispensary. This 
she did, not only by exciting the curiosity of passers-by, who paused 
to stare at her, all bedight and bejewelled as she sat at his front door, 
but also by calling aloud to wayfarers to turn aside and be cured of all 
the ills their flesh was heir to. That the cooly iEsculapius did a 
roaring trade (for he was a puller of teeth as well as apothecary 
and physician) there could be no reasonable doubt, seeing that his 
spouse had upon her person the tangible evidence saved from many 
and liberal fees. A cooly man, no matter what may be his voca- 
tion or his money-winning power, no sooner is able to put by some- 
thing for a rainy day than he hies him unto an artificer, cunning to 
work in silver and gold, and causes to be beaten into bangles, gew- 
gaws, chains, bracelets, or other forms of female ornaments, any spare 
change he may have in his belt or in the folds of his turban — to the 
end that he may encircle the toes or neck, adorn the ankles or thumbs, 
or other parts of his wife's or daughter's, or, if he be a bachelor, sister's 
or sweetheart's body — thus endowing her practically, although it may 
be temporarily, with all and sundry his worldly goods and earthly 
possessions. She thus becomes his savings bank and trust company 
and he regards her in the light of an investment — non-interest-bearing 
it is true, nevertheless subject to draft at sight, doubtless very pre- 
cious to him, and handy to have about the house. 

Conspicuous among her other embellishments this Hindu doctress 
had about her neck — hanging down before her, to her girdle — a neck- 
lace made by joining together, by means of strong silver links, not less 
than three dozen ten-dollar gold pieces. From time to time she 
toyed significantly with these coins, shaking them as if desirous of 
calling attention to the great value of her husband's bank-account, to 
say nothing of the implicit faith displayed by him in intrusting her 
with the custody of his hard-earned savings. "We were duly impressed 
by this display of financial solidity ; as, doubtless, were the Calif or- 



202 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

nian public when the Bank of Nevada opened its doors and began busi- 
ness by exhibiting to possible depositors its ten million dollars of capi- 
tal, all piled up in solid bricks of gold, on the paying-teller's table. 
Within the shop — which also served its occupants as a dwelling — be- 
hind his wife, sat the cooly doctor, and near him were a table and a 
shelf, on which were set in order the pots, jars, phials, and what not of 
his calling. He was evidently lying in wait until his wife persuaded 
some practical invalid or deliberate hypochondriac to put him or her- 
self under his care. She, good woman, meanwhile was doing her best 
to persuade us that we were, individually and collectively, suffering 
from a large and complete assortment of dangerous or suspicious 
symptoms — the unconscious victims of disorders more or less catching, 
chronic, constitutional, or organic, likely to break out or strike in, be- 
come complicated, and terminate fatally. As none of our party was 
under the weather, or had a feeling in the back of the head, a gone- 
ness, or experienced a sinking — but were all tight as trivets and just 
as well as ever we were — we yielded not to the blandishments of the 
doctress, and so passed on, going our ways, without contributing to 
the store of her personal adornment. One of the party, indeed, 
suggested that " somebody should go in, just to please the lady, sim- 
ulate measles or spinal meningitis, tip the doctor, and see how the 
whole thing worked." The Salmagundian, who had been making 
notes of the " outfit," as he called it, ventured the opinion that " it 
might be all right to set a nigger blacksmith making bangles and that 
sort of rubbish," but, as for him, he "didn't see the fun of going 
through the town throwing one's money about just to see how a 
lot of lazy beggars made things ; " as for him, he assured us, it was 
better " to let the doctor alone — it was a good sign, anyway, if his 
trade was dull, and there was no telling who the downy old quack 
might physic or clap a blister to, when once he got started, especially 
if he got the idea there was any money in the crowd." The Sal- 
magundian waxing warm, furthermore declared that "somebody 
would next propose to lavish shekels, that might better be spent for 



A HINDU TOWN. 203 

fruit, upon an undertaker, just for the sake of seeing a funeral 
waltzed through in bang up Hindu style." As for myself, I had 
made up my mind, that if it was not a case of life and death, so far 
as I was concerned, to treat all Hindu doctors and doctresses as 
Moliere served his medical adviser — " II me donne des remedes ; je 
ne les prends pas, et je me gueris." 

In the midst of this cooly district there is an open space, an acre 
or two in extent, densely shaded by a very ancient, and far-spread- 
ing banyan-tree, under the branches of which the cooly people hold 
their market. It would be impossible to imagine a scene more un- 
like any that I had ever beheld in all my travels in America or 
Europe. The people, their wares, their manner of trading, their 
baskets, trays, tables, their manner, voices, gestures, all were strange 
and outlandish, for the Hindus lose but little of their national char- 
acteristics in the New World. As I passed through the crowd the 
sellers saluted respectfully, bowing as they said, " Salaam, sahib ; " 
then eagerly, but without clamor or violent gestures, besought me 
to purchase queer-looking eatables, utensils, ornaments, fabrics — in 
a word, all sorts of merchandise. There were venders of curry and 
curry-powder, purveyors of all kinds of food preserved in curry, 
curry to be taken away or to be eaten then and there — paper-pack- 
ages, boxes, bottles of it, jars, pots, cups, bags, cocoanut-shells, full 
of curry — and everything, living or inanimate, in the market-place, 
was as distinctively East Indian as the curry itself, save and ex- 
cepting a few Africans, Chinese, and Europeans, and their chattels 
and belongings. 

What I have written will serve to show how characteristically 
East Indian the cooly quarter of West Indian San Fernando really is, 
in all its precincts, environments, and aspects. I shall always regret I 
was unable to spend more time in observing the mysterious people, 
whose quaint manners, solemn appearance, fantastic costumes, and 
odd ways of conducting their affairs, differ as strangely and strikingly 
from the habits and customs of my own countrymen, or the people of 



204 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

any nation I have ever visited, as the Hindu market-place under the 
banyan-tree in San Fernando differs from the New York Stock Ex- 
change, or as the Centennial differed in all its varied qualities, from 
Donnybrook Fair or a Dutch kirmess. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACES. 

Regrets at Leaving San Fernando. — The Future of the Cooly and Negro Races. — The 
Heirs of the Caribhees. — The Example of Hayti. — Are the Colored Races to Re- 
trograde in their Civilization ? — Wanted, a Constable. 

aTfejs* LEFT San Fernando with a feeling of reluc- 
tance, amounting almost to discontent, at my 
lack of better opportunity to pursue my in- 
vestigations, enlighten my mind, and gratify 
my curiosity concerning so many things that 
interested me beyond all I had seen on my 
cruise. I wished to spend days roaming about 
the town examining the handicraft of ar- 
tificers, peeping into door- ways and windows, 
which, like the gates of Dis, stand open night 
and day, for there are no blinds or sashes, 
doors or shutters, to be closed, be the weather 
fair or foul. I desired to observe the life of 
this race of transported men who preserve, 
in a foreign land, so many of the peculiari- 
ties of their nation, and adapt their 
mode of life so imperfectly to new 
surroundings, whose mental iner- 
tia prevent them from readjusting 
themselves to meet any require- 
ment of a new order of things. 
They seem not to abate one jot or tittle of any social, moral, or physio- 




206 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

logical law established by their ancestors, ages ago, and still in force in 
the land of their birth. The coolies are emigrants, it is true, but they 
appear to have brought their country with them ; they orientalize (if 
I may use the term) that part of the New World into which they have 
come — they are not new-worldified by crossing the seas, being trans- 
planted, with a great ball of the soil they grew in clinging to them, 
and giving native nourishment to deep-rooted prejudices. Other folk 
may change their minds, and sometimes do, in spite of the dictum of 
the poet, after crossing the sea and establishing new colonies. The 
Hindu, for aught I saw in Trinidad to the contrary, remains un- 
changed, not only in this particular, but, after my experience of the 
heat of the climate of San Fernando, these weird and astonishing folk 
stand credited, in my imagination, with having brought their own skies 
with them, as if they feared to trust themselves out-o'-doors in an at- 
mosphere of progress and new ideas. These superstitious people, who 
regard the sacred tooth of Buddha (which, I am credibly informed, is 
preserved in the innermost sanctuary of a temple, packed away in a 
golden casket contained in a series of boxes, closely fitting into one 
another in regular arrangement) as the most virtuous of relics, beyond 
doubt find their homes in Trinidad agreeable to them, suited to their 
natures and dispositions, and have nothing to complain of in the mat- 
ter of climate, food-supply, or picturesque surroundings. It is natural 
that this should be so ; for, in removing the coolies from Hindustan 
to the northern limits of South America, there occurs no infringement 
of the natural law that in migrating, mankind must, of necessity, in 
order successfully to establish themselves in new seats, proceed in their 
peregrinations along the same parallels of latitude in which they were 
born, and in which their forefathers have resided for generation after 
generation. Of necessity all people, the Hindus included, must so 
travel ; as other people have spread over the face of the earth, so 
must they. That this is beyond peradventure true, I need but call at- 
tention to the relative geographical situation of the nations of Europe 
and of their descendants across the Atlantic to the westward of them. 



TEE FUTURE OF TEE COLORED RACES. 



207 



In the Eastern Hemisphere, beginning at the north and proceeding 
southward, the order of European countries is as follows: Scandinavia, 




Hindu Coolies cutting Cane. 



Britain, France, Spain — I mention onlj those nations which first sent 
out expeditions to discover the New World. In the Western Hemi- 
sphere the order is Greenland, Anglo-Saxon America, French America 



208 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

(Louisiana, etc.), Spanish America. This testimony is all in support 
of the theory of the natural law I have referred to. In the case of 
Anglo-Saxon America, this fact is confirmed in no less striking a 
manner : Canadians migrate to Manitoba, and, under certain restric- 
tions imposed by political considerations, to Minnesota and Michigan ; 
New Englanders, New Yorkers, and Pennsylvanians colonize Ohio, 
Indiana, and so westward, beyond the Mississippi. Virginians and 
North Carolinians overflow into Kentucky and Tennessee ; and those 
States, in turn, into Missouri and Arkansas. Few, a very few, Yer- 
monters are to be found in Georgia ; Louisianians do not remove up 
the Mississippi River, and yet it would seem natural for them to have 
done so, especially in the days before railroads ; Californians — " the 
forty-niners" — are Anglo-Saxons, Irish, people from the New Eng- 
land and Middle States — in fine, from regions due east of the Golden 
State. There are exceptions to this, as to all other rules, but they are 
trifling, and prove, rather than disprove, the truth of the general state- 
ment. The fact that we find English, French, Dutch, and Spanish 
Creoles in the West Indies is just such an exception, and the additional 
fact that the English and Dutch thrive least, the French but a little 
better, and that the Spaniards are only to a slight extent more firmly 
placed in latitudes that, by the provisions of natural law, belong to 
the African and the native of India, abundantly proves, to my way of 
thinking, how inevitably, in the course of time, the white invaders will 
gradually disappear — not entirely, perhaps, but to such a degree that 
their exceptional presence will emphasize the significance of the few- 
ness of their number. 

This process of elimination is going on now. The English are with- 
drawing from the islands ; the annual number of deaths among Eng- 
lish Creoles exceeds the births. This decrease in the total number of 
white Creoles is more marked in the British Islands than in the French, 
and more noticeable still if the comparison be made between the 
first-named colonies and the Spanish possessions. On the other hand, 
Africans and Hindus are rapidly multiplying — the negroes with star- 



THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACES. 209 

tling rapidity. Of the Hindus (introduced under the contract-labor laws 
into Trinidad between the years 1874-1883) it is shown that, while 
the number of deaths in that period was about forty thousand five 
hundred, the total of births was nearly forty-nine thousand, showing 
an increase in the aggregate of between eighteen and twenty per cent. 
All of these facts being true, as they undoubtedly are, without further 
reasoning or appeal to logic we are, apparently, and I believe really, 
led to one conclusion, namely : In the future, it may be in the near 
future — certainly at some time more or less remote — the Africans, 
who were brought unwilling captives into this land of bondage, and 
the Hindus, who owe their exportation from the land of their 
fathers to the imagined necessity for cheaper instead of more intelli- 
gent labor, will find themselves left in possession of regions no longer 
profitably to be cultivated by a race still more deteriorated than the 
generation of European descent that, even now, is slowly but surely 
succumbing in the eternal struggle of the survival of the fittest — suc- 
cumbing to unfavorable climatic influences which, sooner or later, un- 
dermine the constitutions and lessen the reproductive powers of even 
the hardiest of Caucasians. 

What will be the condition of society when the white people have 
forsaken these tropical lands may well become the subject of curious in- 
quiry on the part of those who delight in the study of ethnology, of 
grave debate to statesmen interested in forecasting the fate of nations, 
of anxious thought to churchmen who look to see the heathen re- 
claimed from a condition of idolatry. Into what a horrible condition 
these Hindu- and African- Americans may fall in a short period of 
time can be, in some sort, easily prefigured by a brief study of the brut- 
ish state of mind and morals into which the blacks of the Island of 
Hayti have declined since they arose in unreasoning, merciless rage, 
and drove from the country all Europeans who managed to escape 
pursuers glutted by the slaughter, saturated with the blood of the 
men who once had been their masters. I am loath to disturb the 

peaceful (I wish I could say, smooth and regular) flow of my narra- 
14 



210 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

tive by failing, from time to time, to exclude the rehearsal of such un- 
pleasant but equally undeniable facts as crowd themselves upon the 
attention of travellers in this part of the world, but I cannot deliber- 
ately lay myself open to the charge of journeying among the Carib- 
bees with my eyes shut, or wearing rose-colored spectacles, refusing to 
see anything in its true light, or, seeing, to be convinced that these 
islands are not, in very truth, Paradise, where mankind not only has 
been, and is, but will forever hereafter continue to be, blessed. 

Enjoying every moment of my stay in the West Indies, giving my- 
self up, as completely as was in every way possible and reasonable, to 
the delightful existence, charmed by the magnficent scenery, re-made — 
as the French say — by the delicious, sensuous climate, there were 
times when these questions again and again recurred to me, each time 
with increasing emphasis : 

" What is to become of this teeming population ? 

"Are these men destined to grow more human, or to sink into help- 
less brutality ? " 

It is probable that, left to themselves, the negroes and the coolies 
will sink to the level of their brethren on the Island of Hayti. It is 
barely possible that in some way or another the tide of white immi- 
gration may be stimulated to flow again toward these islands. The 
sugar-industry may revive ; other crops may be planted which will 
render the plantations again valuable, and worth the care of owners 
now disposed to abandon them ; new enterprises may be set on foot. 
In some indefinite and, at present, indescribable fashion the Caribbees 
may become once more of importance in the political or commercial 
world, and so, the gradual extermination of the European races being 
checked, their ultimate disappearance may be postponed until such 
time as the black races, by longer contact with civilization, shall have 
acquired a more perfect knowledge of the art of self-government, shall 
have had instilled into them a knowledge of the necessity for popular 
education, and the wise administration of laws. If this should take 
place, then these islands may be handed over to the colored people, 



THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACES. 211 

with full assurance that they can regulate their own affairs, keep pace 
with the march of improvement, and maintain their place among the 
Christian nations of the earth, instead of degenerating into a horde of 
mild-mannered, indolent semi-savages, if, indeed, a worse fate shall 
not, in the end, be theirs. 

I do not arrogate to men of my blood all the virtues that tend to 
elevate mankind ; but it is not to be denied that the average black 
man, but fifty years a freedman by the act of the British Parliament, 
has hardly had time to learn how great are the responsibilities to be 
borne by men when they are free to work out their own salvation as 
individuals, or collectively, as a nation. 

It is true much has been done by the whites to educate their 
lowly brethren — to put them in fear of the laws of God and man, to 
make them virtuous, law-abiding, industrious, provident ; but it would 
be too much to expect, that in so short a time since it was first declared, 
or, rather, admitted, not to be a crime to teach children of African 
blood to read, the negroes should have become capable of regulating 
their own affairs in such manner as would conduce to the greatest good 
of the greatest number. 

It is not too much, however, to expect that in time the negroes will 
know how to govern themselves — they are capable of acquiring that 
knowledge, and, having acquired it, of using it wisely and man-fashion. 
As a matter of fact, there is abundant evidence that to the colored 
races there has been given, in no less degree than to the white races, 
the same longing to get on in the world, win honor and distinction, 
gain wealth and keep it ; in short, to rise above the dead level of brute- 
life. It is not the natural inability of the negroes in these islands to 
take advantage of any opportunity of self-advancement that enhances 
the social, moral, and political dangers by which they are environed ; 
it is because they had been taught for generations that they had 
no lot nor interest in anything pertaining to the administration of 
public affairs, that knowledge was not for such as they, that they 
were to work and hold their peace, abandon all hope of any of the re- 



212 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

wards of industry, leave book-learning to their betters, and beget chil- 
dren to increase the wealth of their owners. They, in their helpless- 
ness, took these things to be so, and for years pursued the even tenor 
of their way, thinking of freedom only as surcease of labor, imagining 
that a freedman was one who would be degraded by any kind of work, 
even to keep himself from starvation. All at once the negro saw a 
great light. In 1834 he was set free. Free ! Why should he labor ? 
In slavery he had been compelled to work. Freedom meant liberty to 
do as he pleased ; he pleased to do nothing. Why go to school ? As 
well obey the task-master as the school-master. There were yams and 
plantains and bread-fruit ; why should he work ? He was not starv- 
ing. What need of clothes ? It was warm weather all the year. It 
took the negro some time to find out that he was a man among men, to 
realize he was his own master — to learn that freedom not onlv meant 
that he was free to idle away the days, but also to starve, to go ragged, 
fall sick, die, lie unbnried, unless he had the wherewithal to pay his 
way while in the world, and left a few shillings to be spent in bury- 
ing him when he departed out of it. The first lesson he learned was 
to beg— there are hosts of beggars to-day on all the islands ; then it 
dawned on him that he was free to work for whoever might offer 
him the highest wages. Step by step, like a child learning to walk, he 
advanced along the road, wondering that he could walk at all ; lie was 
like a dog accustomed to be led by a chain — when freed from the 
chain he became bewildered, and, having lost his master, knew not 
which way to turn. At liberty to work for himself, he knew not how 
best he might serve his new master. Fifty years has made a great 
change in the condition of the blacks; but what is fifty years in the 
history of a race ? How many centuries was England in the mak- 
ing ? The advance in civilization made by the Anglo-Saxon race 
in a century was oftentimes barely perceptible. Good folks burned 
witches all over Europe, as well as within fifteen miles of Harvard 
College, two hundred years ago. Is it to be wondered at that the dar- 
kies of Trinidad go in fear of Jumbie or practise Obeah, dance naked 



THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RACES. 213 

in the jungle in order to drive out devils, believe in the evil eye, 
and wear charms to protect them from the power of enchantment ? 

Rather may we marvel that the colored folks have been able to take 
such wide advantage of their opportunities for development. The 
darkies go to school, it is true, but were the school-houses removed, 
would they replace them — would they tax themselves to support a sys- 
tem of public education ? They obey the laws, not out of respect for 
the laws themselves, but because they stand in awe of the power that 
enforces the law. "Would they make such laws, do they know the value 
of them, would they observe the laws were the law-making and law- 
enforcing power withdrawn? There are many able colored men in 
the islands ; they are to be met with everywhere — in the church, in the 
halls of legislature, in banks and counting-houses ; there are colored 
preachers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, many colored gentlemen. I 
have conversed with some of them, argued, reasoned, and been rea- 
soned with by them, have dined with them, and had some of them to 
dine with me. I remember one gentleman I had the pleasure of 
meeting at St. Kitt's ; I had been told he was one of the most en- 
terprising, reliable, honorable merchants on the island. I found him 
affable beyond all my claims on him, obliging and courteous, of polite 
address, and a conversationalist of remarkable ability ; he had facts at 
his command, and knew how to present them in well-chosen language. 
From him, in a conversation lasting one hour, I gathered more useful 
knowledge concerning the politics of the islands, the state of society, 
the needs of the people, the condition of trade, the requirements of 
commerce, than I could gain from studying government reports and 
blue-books in a whole day. He had pondered well and deeply all the 
questions that concerned the welfare of his people, and, by his knowl- 
edge of the matters that were to the fore in public discussion in my 
own land, he showed himself to be a man who read and digested the 
contents of many books, and who kept himself . informed about mat- 
ters of which many Anglo-creoles are entirely ignorant or profess a 
profound indifference. 



214 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

There are many such men in the islands — but are there enough of 
them ? is there leaven of this sort sufficient to leaven the whole lump ? 
I fear not. The great mass of the population are indolent, physically 
and mentally — ignorant beyond belief, unambitious, superstitious ; in 
fact, brutish. 

Left to themselves the negroes would soon forget what little they 
have been taught, cease to strive after higher things — and in the isl- 
ands where life may be supported by plucking and eating the wild 
fruits and other native crops the people would fold their hands, bask 
in the sun, and in the course of time it could with equal truth be 
said of the Caribbees, as Sir Spenser St. John tells us was said of 
Ilayti in his hearing, " If we could return to Hayti fifty years hence, 
we should find the negresses cooking their bananas on the sites of the 
warehouses." 

I do not mean to infer that when the whites left the islands there 
would be an end of all civilization — after us the deluge. What I 
do mean to say is, that fifty years have not sufficed to educate the 
blacks to such a degree that they are capable of carrying on a govern- 
ment devised and brought into existence by white men for white men. 
The very best that can be hoped for these islands is, that they may 
not fall into the lamentable plight of that one of the Greater Antilles 
which Louis Napoleon apostrophized in the words : 

" Haiti, Haiti, pays de barbares." 

To what a depth of social, intellectual, and moral degradation the 
enfranchised, uneducated black people of that island have descended 
may be learned by the perusal of but one book* among others in which 
much accurate, unimpeachable testimony is given concerning the pres- 
ent condition of the land Columbus named Hispaniola. 

I need not dwell upon the causes which led to the revolt of the 
Haytian negroes, nor relate the fearful story of bloodshed and cruelty 
practised by them in their struggle for independence. They were 

* Hayti ; or, The Black Republic. By Sir Spenser St. John. 



THE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RAGES. 215 

justified in their longing to be free, and they achieved their freedom 
bravely. 

Under all circumstances, the negroes were entitled to a chance 
to work out their own political, social, and moral salvation. It is beg- 
ging the question to maintain that it would have been better if they 
had waited until they knew the value of freedom and citizenship be- 
fore striking a blow for their attainment. In their condition of life 
as slaves no opportunity was afforded, nor was likely to be offered 
them, of fitting themselves to be freemen, of using their liberty wisely 
and in moderation. As well argue .that a boy should not go near the 
water until he had learned to swim. 

It would have been well had their masters held out the hope to 
them that, by waiting, they would be given opportunities to acquire 
book-learning and some experience in the art of government, to gain 
even the most imperfect knowledge of the duties men owe to one an- 
other and the State, and conceive some idea of the responsibilities that 
attach to individuals who are admitted to possess the right to labor for 
themselves and receive the reward of their industry. It would have 
been well had the negroes waited, provided always (and only so pro- 
vided), there had been the narrowest outlook of hope for them in 
that direction. But the undeniable, cruel fact is, there was no such 
outlook for them, not the remotest probability that, under the then 
existing order of things, they would ever be accorded a single chance 
to better their moral condition, or even to save their souls, if, by con- 
ferring such privileges upon them, individually or as a race, there 
should accrue the slightest possible danger or threat of annoyance to 
the so-called dominant race — a race which was accustomed to look 
upon the negro as an inferior species, speaking "of a mulatto as 
they would of one affected with the leprosy." 

No, there was not one human chance for the Haytian negroes, ex- 
cept that they should increase in numbers until there were enough 
black men to warrant a hope of success in an unequal struggle in 
which they throttled, strangled, tore with naked hands, murdered 



216 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

with clubs, the smaller number of whites, who alone possessed, 
and alone knew how to wield, ingenious weapons of defence and 
offence, and had the law, their oivn law, on their side. When the 
negro had learned the power of numbers, the day of reckoning came, 
the contest of brute force against intelligent organization began — 
ninety per cent., and more, of the total number of the people of 
Hayti against the remnant. The battle was to the death. The ne- 
groes knew that to strike a white man was an offence, according to 
the white man's laws, punishable with death — therefore they reasoned, 
if reason they did, that there was no redress, hope of liberty, or safety 
in killing a few of their oppressors, and they decided that the first 
law of nature compelled them to continue to kill until there was no 
one left to administer the white man's law or to execute his sentences. 
Driven to this determination, they massacred every white that fell into 
their hands, and tortured and slew every colored person suspected of 
siding with the people of European descent. They murdered and pil- 
laged, steeping themselves in blood — vied with one another in cruelty 
— until life in Hayti became more hideous than death itself. The 
details of the story of the reign of terror that maddened all conditions 
of men, and served to brutalize the human race in this ill-fated island, 
are too shocking (they would interest few of my readers, I sincerely 
hope) to find rehearsal here. The record is revolting, beyond all be- 
lief horrible, and the telling of it would assuredly not adorn my nar- 
rative of a pleasure-trip to the tropics, nor would it serve to point 
a moral in which might be summed up the answer to the question : 

" What is to become of the colored people of the Windward Isl- 
ands if, in the fulness of time, those islands are deserted by the whites, 
and the ignorant negroes, left to their own devices, undertake the man- 
agement of their own affairs ? " 

I have not sketched the history of the negro revolt in Hayti for 
the purpose of illustrating the future condition of the Caribbean Isl- 
ands, but only to show to what a brutal condition the negro race can 
fall when, after having been brought into contact for a time with Eu- 



TEE FUTURE OF TEE COLORED RACES. 217 

ropean civilization, they violently achieve their own independence and 
take the regulating of their political life into their own care and keep- 
ing. What use the Haytian negroes made of their liberties, how they 
have fared, socially and morally, as individuals, or politically, as a na- 
tion, since the days they drove the French- from their island, we may 
learn by a few quotations from Sir Spenser St. John's valuable 
work (already referred to) or from a book written by Captain Ken- 
nedy, of the British Navy. The first-named author states : 

"The negresses are, in fact, already cooking their bananas amid 
the ruins of the best houses of the capital," and yet the fifty years of 
the prophecy he mentions as having been made in his hearing [given 
above] have barely run half their course. 

" My own impression, after personally knowing the country about 
twenty years,* is, that it is a country in a state of rapid decadence . . . 
falling to the rear in the race of civilization. 

"The long civil war (1868-1869) under President Salnave de- 
stroyed a vast amount of property and rendered living in the country 
districts less secure, so that there has been ever since a tendency for 
the more civilized inhabitants to agglomerate in the towns, and leave 
the rural districts to fetich-worship and cannibalism.^ Fires, most of 
them incendiary, ha>je swept over the cities, and in the commercial 
quarters of Port au Prince it w 7 ould be difficult to find any houses 
which existed in 1863. 

"Agriculture in the plains is also deteriorating. . . . For- 
eigners are withdrawing from the republic, and capital is following 
them. . . . The best of the colored people are also leaving. 

" In spite of all the civilizing elements around them, there is a dis- 
tinct tendency to sink into the state of an African tribe. 

" Voudoo worship and cannibalism are practised. Had I listened 
to the testimony of many experienced residents, I should have de- 
scribed rites at which dozens f of human victims were sacrificed at a 

* He was for upward of that time British Consul in the island. 
f The italics are mine. — The Atjthok. 



218 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

time. ... It may be suggested that I am referring to the past. 
On the contrary, I am informed that at present cannibalism is more 
rampant than ever. 

. . . " the masses, ignorant, and deeply tainted with fetich- 
worship. . . . The fetich-dances were forbidden by decree. . . . 
That decree has been since repealed * and high officers now attend 
these meetings, and distribute money and applaud the most frantic 
excesses." 

These extracts from Sir Spenser St. John's account of the island of 
Hayti show, on what is doubtless unimpeachable authority, the pres- 
ent state of the Black Republic — they indicate the condition of society, 
and throw a lurid light on the picture of a community rapidly sink- 
ing to the level of the barbarous tribes lately made known to the civ- 
ilized world by the discoveries of Livingstone and Stanley. 

Now, I do not believe that the negro inhabitants of the Caribbean 
Islands will ever, of necessity, fall into the quagmire into which their 
neighbors the Haytians have been betrayed by ignorance and supersti- 
tion — but they are in danger of gradually and unconsciously wandering 
far from the civilized highways, so that in time many of the results 
of that enlightenment which is beginning to dawn upon their race 
may be counteracted by the natural tendency of mankind to retrograde 
when left to their own devices unstimulated by worthy ambition, un- 
guided by the teachings of Christianity. Nor do I believe that the 
black people in question will ever again, as in the days of their slavery, 
rise in revolt against the authority of the whites — although the expe- 
rience of the island of Santa Cruz but a few years ago throws a doubt 
on this hopeful view of things — but I do believe that, just as the whites 
of Hayti were driven from that country by the fury of the negroes, so 
will the British Creoles in due time, lose their hold on the manage- 
ment of affairs in the English colonies, for the reason that they will 
continue to decrease in number — unless, as I have pointed out, some 

* The italics are mine. — The Author. 



TEE FUTURE OF TEE COLORED RACES. 219 

now unforeseen cause shall arise to stimulate a renewal of their immi- 
gration to this part of the world — until the handful of them remain- 
ing will, by reason of their fewness, have no voice in the ordering of 
public matters. This peaceful extermination of the white race seems 
to be as inevitable, from the causes I have named, as the banishment 
of the French Creoles from Hayti. 

The assumption by the colored people of the "Windward Islands of 
the reins of such a government as they may know how to establish 
will, it goes without saying, not in all likelihood be marked by the 
scenes of frightful disorder or bloodshed which characterized the in- 
surrection in Hayti. 

The Caribbean negroes are free — were set free by the voluntary 
act of their masters — and since their emancipation, much — a surprising 
deal — has been done to better their condition, to educate them, to 
tempt them to live industrious, law-abiding, contented lives. Schools 
have been established, churches endowed, equal political rights have 
been accorded them ; their ambition has been stimulated by throwing 
open to them the road to political preferment, a certain sort of social 
equality has been yielded to them, their complaints/ have received 
consideration, their suggestions as to changes in the laws of the land 
have had attention — in many instances have been acted upon. In a 
word, to sum up, the whites have attempted nobly to do their duty by 
their black brethren, and, as a rule, the negroes have deserved the ef- 
forts made in their behalf. 

Nevertheless, the day may come when the descendants of the slaves 
of old will have so increased in numbers, and when the children of 
their old masters have either left the islands or failed to keep up their 
proportionate increase of the population, that there shall be no good 
and sufficient reason why the black man shall not say to the remnant of 
Anglo-creoles : " Stand aside, and see how we can make laws for your 
guidance and regulation, as you have, all these years, made laws for us 
— with our consent, it is true. We knew not how to do better, or as 
well, may be; nevertheless, we intend to make the experiment." 



220 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

What will happen in those days? What will become of all these 
islands, teeming with population ? Has fifty years of wise intent in 
the matter of law-making by Great Britain, interfered with, often, by 
sentimental nursing and coddling by Exeter Hall enthusiasts, fitted 
the negro for the struggle? Has he been put into such thorough 
training as will enable him to secure a place, even, in the race of 
civilization ? Is he strong enough to contend in the arena of politics, 
to hold up his end of the world ? I fear not. He may not sink as 
low as the Haytians have ; he will, in all probability, descend a long 
way in that direction. He may not become once more thoroughly 
Africanized ; he certainly will not be Anglicized — Americanized, if 
you will. Withdraw all, or nearly all, the cultivated, educated people 
from Lancashire, deprive that community of the services of its learned, 
scientific men, its college-bred clergymen, lawyers, doctors, engineers, 
its great merchants, bankers, capitalists, skilful farmers — in short, its 
brain-power — and it needs no prophet to foretell that, in less than fifty 
years, the women mill-hands would, if they had them to cook, be found 
cooking their Irish potatoes on the sites of the cotton-mills. And yet 
in Lancashire the mill-hands (and many spinners and weavers have 
risen from the ranks and have built mills and sat in Parliament) have 
at least two stimulants to work : Hunger and cold. Food is not to 
be had by anyone strolling in the forests where fruits ripen all the 
year round ; and the bitter weather makes clothing a necessity. The 
Caribbean darkies (except on the island of Barbados, where there are 
no forests and wild fruits) can sustain life existing from hand to 
mouth, without the necessity of daily labor. As for clothing — it is 
summer all the long year round. 

Again the question : What is to become of all these people ? 

It would be well for the Haytians — it would be their chance of re- 
demption — well for the bodies and the souls of them, if some strong 
foreign power, or a committee of powers (if I may use the term), would 
take the island under its protection, and, in a spirit of enlightenment, 
regulate, or insist upon the Haytians themselves regulating, their 



TEE FUTURE OF THE COLORED RAGES. 221 

affairs in accordance with the laws of Christianity and humanity. 
The presence of a fleet in their harbors, a few soldiers, a constabu- 
lary stationed in a few central positions, would encourage the few 
brave hearts that do not even yet despair of their republic to make 
an effort to check the Africanizing of the island — a brighter day might 
dawn for its people, and in due time it might enter into the minds of 
some of the less barbarous of them that it would be well to build a 
school, a church. Then would begin a new era ; from that day the 
regeneration of le pays de harbares would be assured. If this is not 
done, one may not foretell the ultimate state of degradation into which 
the people of Hayti shall fall, and one shrinks from prophesying the 
decadence of the black people of the Windward Islands. One hears 
much talk in the Caribbees about annexation to the United States — 
constantly it is said the United States ought to take Hayti, and re- 
store peace and prosperity to that island. 

In my humble opinion, the United States want neither the one nor 
the other. As for the Caribbees, John Bull is, on the whole, doing 
fairly well (except in the matter of free trade) with them. As for 
Hayti, perhaps the time is near at hand when Uncle Sam will be com- 
pelled to say to its people : "I don't want you — we have undigested 
Americans enough at home without acquiring possession of such a 
precious lot of foreigners as you seem to be — but I don't mind taking 
you by the ears and setting you right, only in the interests of peace 
and quietness. I have my eye on you, so behave yourselves. When 
I have taught you better manners you can again manage your own 
concerns ; until then, I propose to play policeman, if no one else offers 
to do the job." 

The Haytians undoubtedly need foreign intervention — the protec- 
tion of some strong power — they are amenable to no argument but 
that of force, and, like the guests at Hans Breitman's party, will, in 
all human probability, continue to fight with table-legs till the con- 
stable makes them stop. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



GRENADA. 



Discovery of Grenada and Tobago. — Description of the Former.— St. George's Harbor. 
— A Romantic Town. — The " Yaws." — A Ride Inland. — Beasts of Burden. — Cocoa 
and Cocoa-planting. — Bread-fruit. 

ERY sea-worn and 

shattered, on the 

fourteenth day of 

LUgust in the year 

1498 the little fleet of 

Columbus weighed anchor 




a the Gulf of Paria. After 
inconsiderable difficulty, 
owing to the clumsiness of the 
rig and model of vessels at the mercy 
of baffling winds and uncertain cur- 
rents, the expedition stood out through 
the Dragon's Mouths into the open 
The salmagundi gets a •• Tip - wa ter where the Atlantic meets the 

Caribbean Sea. From the deck of the admiral's ship, after it was 
clear of the land, there were to be seen, albeit somewhat indistinctly, 
toward the north and east, two islands, to which Columbus gave the 
names, Asuncion and Concepcion. They are the islands now known, 
that one farthest to the east, as Tobago; the other, directly north- 
ward of the Dragon's Mouths, Grenada. Steering to the westward 
from Trinidad, along the shore thereafter to be called the Spanish 



GRENADA. 223 

Main, Columbus soon lost sight of the two islands, and there is no 
record of his ever having laid eyes on either of them again. 

Just at sunset the Barracouta steamed out to sea, and laid her 
course toward the north ; when it was dark, for the first time in all our 
cruise, we beheld the Southern Cross rising astern of us. We were 
homeward bound. Thereafter we sailed in quest of the North Star, 
which, however, did not show above the ocean until we had voyaged 
northward beyond the islands I have already described and those I 
have still to tell about. 

Grenada, extending north and south about eighteen and one-half 
miles, is seven and one-half miles in width at its widest part. The 
whole surface of the island is rugged — hills heaped on hills; the 
highest point, Mount St. Catherine, rises 2,750 feet above sea-level ; 
from it spurs and foot-hills project outward on all sides, to shores 
in many places formed of perpendicular cliffs overhanging the ocean. 
The mountains are of volcanic formation, their tops forestrgrown, 
the valleys between them exceedingly fertile. There are numerous 
hot springs and several craters of extinct volcanoes; one of these 
forms a basin, or, rather, a large lake, two and one-half miles in cir- 
cumference, almost in the heart of Grenada, more than two thousand 
feet above tide-mark. 

Toward the eastern part the land sinks, at first abruptly, from the 
forests on the hill-tops, then in gradual slope to the shore ; but it can- 
not be said there is anywhere a plain or level savannah of great extent. 
The island is well watered by a score of streams, of sufficient flow to 
turn mills for grinding corn and crushing cane. The climate, although 
tempered by the sea-breezes, is hotter than that of the other Carib- 
bees ; nevertheless, Grenada is a healthy place, as the average mortality 
of white inhabitants, which is considerably less than in others of the 
islands, abundantly proves. The annual rainfall is sixty-five inches, 
and the island is not often visited by hurricanes, although of these 
disasters several have, at long intervals, worked considerable damage. 
Since 1640, the date of the first-recorded cyclone, none of them, 



224 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

however, was as violent as many that have occurred in St. Vincent, 
Barbados, or others of the Windward Islands. 

Grenada lies between 11° 58' and 12° 30' north latitude and 61° 
20' and 61° 35' west longitude, has an area of 88,320 acres, or one 
hundred and thirty-eight square miles, and contains a population of 
42,000, consisting of a few whites, and several thousand Hindu and 
Chinese coolies. The great majority of the people, fully four-fifths 
of them, are of African descent. The chief towns of Grenada are St. 
George, where is a remarkable harbor, a quaint, secure anchorage, 
which I will presently try to picture to the minds of my readers ; St. 
Mark's, or, as it was called in the old French days, Grand Pauvre; 
St. Patrick's ; St. Andrew's, once Charlottetown. There is also a 
small harbor on the south coast, named, in honor of the patron saint 
of Wales, St. David's Harbor. There is no town of importance near 
this latter roadstead — I only make mention of it to show that St. Taffy 
receives no less homage than the worshipful Knights of the Thistle, 
the Rose, and the Shamrock. 

Through the night our vessel held her way toward her desired 
haven — I slept in peace until the level rays of the rising sun, darting 
through the open door of the smoking-room, awakened me. Slipping 
my feet into slippers, wrapping a light rug around me, for it was a 
breezy morning, I stepped out on deck and strolled forward. The 
watch on the forecastle had just lowered the great lantern from the 
fore-rigging, a quartermaster was dowsing the glims of the side-lights. 
The operation of washing decks was progressing — mops, buckets, and 
squeegees, all working their way slowly but relentlessly aft, threatened 
the dislodgement of my fellow-passengers who slept under the awning 
on the after-deck. I nodded to the officer on the bridge, took a look 
at the compass amidships, where the binnacle-lights were still blink- 
ing ineffectually, and found we were running almost due north. 

Grenada was in sight. 

The soil of the southern extremity of the island is not so fertile 
nor so highly cultivated as in other parts of the island, the shore is 



GRENADA. 



225 



scantily wooded, and there are but few shrubs or plantations of fruit- 
trees near the coast. At the time of which I am writing — at the end 
of the long dry season — the grass was brown and crisp ; under duller 
skies, in a colder climate, veiled in fogs and mists, the landscape would 
have appeared desolate, but, in the golden tropical sunlight, Grenada 
presented a picture of green forests and gold and purple groves. 

Two hours after sunrise the steamer was abreast of the entrance 




Fort St. George, Grenada. 



to the harbor of 
St. George; 
then, turn- 
ing toward 
the land, she 
sought an 
entrance in- 
to the oddest, quaintest, land-locked anchorage it has ever been my 
fortune to behold. When we were half a mile from shore we 
stopped to take a pilot; and much need there was of one, for, so 
far as I could discover, there was no fair-way into the mysteri- 
ous haven that hid itself amid a confusion of crags and precipices, 
where no man could guess there was a refuge for even the smallest 

fishing-smack. I was reminded of the approach to the harbor at the 

15 



226 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

mouth of the River Dart in South Devon. For, just as that little 
port seemed to me to have been especially planned by nature for the 
comfort and safe retreat of smugglers and other suspicious marine 
characters, so did the harbor of St. George appear, to my delighted 
eyes, as a romantic and secret resort for piratical craft. Indeed, the 
sight of it conjured up the spirits of all the blood-thirsty villains 
of whose wild doings, in old times, all along the Spanish Main, 
I had aforetime read in the works of a host of spinners of sailors' 
yarns. 

At the entrance to the harbor, on the northern side of it, extending 
along the crest of a bold promontory, are the well-preserved walls and 
battlements of an old fortification, a stronghold founded, probably, by 
Spanish conquistadores, added to by their French successors to the pos- 
session of the island, strengthened, in turn, by British soldiers and 
sailors who have, except at short intervals, kept watch and ward over 
it for wellnigh a century and a half. 

Had Victor Hugo ever visited St. George, he would, beyond 
doubt, have made it the scene of an amphibious romance, if I may 
use that term to describe the class of tales of which " Les Travailleurs 
de la Mer " is the perfect exemplar. Dumas the elder would doubtless 
have woven its mysterious history into the wonderful fabric of a story 
of a Caribbean Monte Cristo, and, my word for it, the author of 
" Treasure Island," if it ever should be his good fortune to gaze upon 
the weird beauty of this sea-side lake, will be tempted to write another 
delightful book for the perusal of all good " boys from sixteen to 
sixty years of age." This will he certainly so, just for the pleasure it 
will give him to romance about it, to wonder at it, to people it with 
pirates and mutineers — and all the host of delightful villains he can 
call at will from the vasty deep of his imagination. The harbor of 
St. George is situated in a crater — long since extinct, as may well be 
supposed — seeing that it is filled fathoms deep, yes, a hundred fathoms 
in its deepest part, with sea-water, which enters through a narrow 
breach in the western wall, long ages ago undermined and thrown 



GRENADA. 227 

down by the ceaseless beating of the waves. Imagine a mountain-lake, 
of perhaps one thousand acres in extent, of very irregular margin, 
tropical vegetation fringing it round about and completely encircling 
it, except where a little town stretches along the shore for a few hun- 
dred yards. Imagine great hills rising on all sides from the white 
beach of such a lake — such a lake as one sees in the most inaccessible 
parts of the Adirondack Mountains — the water transparent to a depth 
of ten, twenty, forty fathoms, reflecting overhanging palms in the 
perfectly quiet, unruffled mirror, mangroves growing in shallow places 
by the brooks, on the slopes cocoa-groves and plantations of bread- 
fruit-trees ; on the summits of the hills the blackening walls of fortifi- 
cations, which in old days were capable of preventing all attempts to 
take the island out of the catalogue of English colonies — imagine, if 
you can, such a place — it is the harbor of St. George. How the pilot 
who had her in charge got the Barracouta through the secret en- 
trance, a pathway scarcely a cable's length in width, I do not know. 
When the ship did safely anchor inside the sea-wall, which opened 
before her to close again (for so it seemed) when she had passed in, I 
ceased to wonder by what way she had entered, and " fell into admira- 
tion," as an old writer, describing this self-same harbor, puts it, " by 
what hidden passage we would win out to sea again." Completely 
land-locked were we, as if the ship had been launched in a mountain- 
tarn, hemmed in by grand hills, there to remain until dismantled by 
time, never to toss on old ocean again. Never did the Barracouta 
look so large, such an infinite deal of ship to such a diminutive 
amount of sea-room. She would have had more space to manoeuvre 
in many of the great docks at Liverpool. When she lay broadside 
to the water-front of the little town, a biscuit-toss from a row of small 
two-story warehouses, the steamer, by comparison, assumed perfectly 
gigantic proportions. 

The picture seemed out of drawing; one was reminded of the 
queer woodcuts in ancient books, wherein are figured the arrival of 
ships at islands less in size than the ships themselves, where dwell sav- 



228 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

ages as tall as palms, who oppose the landing of sailors the height of 
the mainmasts of the caravels or galleons they come in. 

The town contains a population of about five thousand souls, who 
have builded their quaint habitations under the crest, on one side of 
the submerged crater, like swallows that have made their nests in 
the chimney of a deserted dwelling. The houses extend upward over a 
high ridge, a rocky isthmus that connects the promontory on the sum- 
mit of which is Fort St. George, with the inland heights called Hospi- 
tal Hill. The thoroughfares, climbing at right angles to the quay, 
ascend a steep grade, and the dwellings on the streets parallel to the 
sea-wall overtop those in front of them, and this again serves to remind 
one of Dartmouth in England. On the hill-crest stands the parish 
church, commanding an extensive view over the harbor on one side, 
and on the other, far out to sea. The promontory on which is Fort 
St. George, when viewed from the Hospital Hill, resembles Monaco in 
miniature. The fort, once strong and well garrisoned, is now left in 
the keeping of a few militia-men ; the cannon, of ancient make, have 
nearly all been dismounted — -the few still remaining are rusty and 
time-worn. The ditch enclosing the fortress is filled with debris, 
choked with weeds, the parapet is broken down in places, and the 
face of bastion, ravelin, and curtain- wall are moss-grown — all hidden 
by beautiful greenery. 

From the parapet I looked out upon the sea. Between the foot 
of the ramparts and the margin of the water stands a hospital — a 
place of retreat, say, rather, of imprisonment, for unfortunate beings 
attacked by a frightful disease known as the yaws. 

This malady was undoubtedly imported from Africa in the slave- 
ships, if, indeed, it did not originate in the holds of those floating 
charnel-houses. It is, to a certain degree, contagious ; its virus may be 
carried from an infected to a healthy person by the common fly, but 
like all filth-diseases (of which leprosy, also prevalent among the 
Creoles of African or Asiatic descent, is one"), it is easily guarded 
against, contaminating only those whose brutish habits and unclean 



GRENADA. 229 

manner of living expose them to its horrible defilement. It is heredi- 
tary, and in such cases practically incurable, although by rigorous 
treatment its symptoms may be ameliorated and (doubtful blessing) 
the life of the miserable patient prolonged indefinitely. 

I shall dwell no longer on this disgusting subject; I only mention 
it in order to give credit to the charity of the people of Grenada for 
attempting, so far as lies in their power, to alleviate the sufferings of 
their unfortunate fellow-creatures for whose reception this and other 
hospitals have been erected — lazar-houses, in which all who enter are 
closely confined, perfectly isolated, God help them ! leaving all hope 
of re-entering the world behind. 

Landward from the fort the town lies spread out like a map. 
Behind the houses rise Richmond Heights, along the brow of which 
extends a line of fortifications of great size, connected, it is said, 
with Fort St. George by an underground gallery spacious enough to 
permit the passage of troops. Half-way up the slope, between the 
town and the fortress, stands Government House, surrounded by a 
garden, and commanding a magnificent view. Up to this official resi- 
dence a broad, smooth avenue winds from the landing, as w T e found 
when, according to the hospitable custom of the good people of every 
port in these islands at which it was our fortune to touch, we were put 
into carriages, early in the afternoon, and sent off on a drive. As- 
cending the hill, we passed close by Government House, an attractive- 
looking country-mansion, substantially built, and charming in all its 
surroundings. There was an air of luxury, not to say magnificence, 
about this dwelling that, in our eyes, served to magnify the importance 
of the office held by its occupant, the Governor of the Windward Isl- 
ands. For, be it remembered, St. George is now the seat of government, 
Grenada being no longer a dependency of Barbados, as was the case 
until recent times. I must confess that at first we were not disposed 
to accord his excellency very high rank among the world's great ones, 
but when we had seen his country-palace, surrounded by luxuriant 
gardens and fair pleasances, and learned that, besides being eomfort- 



230 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

ably lodged, as we saw, and sumptuously " found," as we could well 
believe, Ins excellency receives a salary double that paid to the Gov- 
ernor of New York State, we esteemed him highly, and were prepared 
to make humble obeisance should he show himself to us as we passed 
before his gates. Truly, it may be unprofitable vexation of spirit to 
follow the calling of a sugar-planter in any of these Caribbees — but to 
be governor, that is quite another thing. 

Let me interpolate here that, since my visit to Grenada, that island, 
as well as St. Yincent, St. Lucia, and Tobago, were constituted in 1885 
into the " Government of the Windward Islands," and Walter Joseph 
Kendall, Esquire, was appointed first governor. He is assisted in the 
cares of his office by an executive council and a legislative council, ap- 
pointed by the governor, with the approval of Her Majesty of Eng- 
land. There is also a supreme court to which appeals lie, composed of 
the chief justices of each of the islands named above. From these few 
statistics, it will be learned that the machinery of government is kept 
in good running order. It is somewhat cumbersome, perhaps — the gov- 
erning power is obviously so much greater than would seem reasonably 
necessary to carry on so small a government. The simile suggests 
itself of a forty-ton engine drawing a street car ; nevertheless, it must 
be a great source of gratification to the people of this community to 
know that it does not lie in the mouth of any American to reproach 
them for acting in a niggardly spirit toward Her Majesty's appointee, 
and those with him, set in authority over them. 

Beyond Government House we proceeded seven or eight miles 
into the heart of a country resembling the interior of Martinique, ex- 
cept that the forests are not so dense, and, owing to the greater dry- 
ness of the climate, the vegetation is less rank, and the trees are of 
smaller girth and stature. 

The principal product of Grenada is now, and has for years been, 
cocoa, or, as it is often spelled, " cacao." The cocoa-tree was intro- 
duced into the island in early times, either from Mexico or the neigh- 
boring coast of South America; most likely from Trinidad. The soil 



GRENADA. 231 

and climate of Grenada are particularly favorable to its growth and 
perfect development, as is shown by the fact that in some places there 
are to be seen trees more than one hundred years old, as I was told, 
still bearing vigorously and giving promise of crops for years to come. 
The cultivation of cocoa is increasing rapidly ; year by year land is 
cleared, and laid out in groves. In 1865 the shipment of this staple 
amounted to one million and a quarter pounds, in 1875 to more than 
three million pounds, and in 1885 to between five and six millions. In 
addition to cocoa-planting the planters pay considerable attention to 
the cultivation of spices, and it is said that an experiment made in 
growing the tea-plant has encouraged enterprising people to persist in 
further trial. Grenada is beyond doubt the great fruit-producing 
Garibbee — there we had better oranges, mangoes, and bananas than at 
any other place. In the matter of pineapples, however, Antigua, in 
my estimation, may be said to carry off the palm, as does Montserrat 
so far as the quality of limes is concerned. 

On our drive we passed through many fine cocoatieres — not groves of 
cocoa-palms upon which grow the cocoa-nuts, be it noted ; these latter, 
called by botanists Cocos micifera, are tall and stately trees, with grand 
crowns of broad, arching leaves. The cocoa-trees bearing the pods 
containing the beans which, being roasted, ground, and mixed with 
sugar and arrowroot or starch, form the base of chocolate, were named 
by Linnaeus Theobroma (food for gods). A man who plants a cocoa- 
tree has to exercise considerable patience before he can begin to profit 
by his experiment. These plants take several years to reach the fruit- 
bearing stage of their development. At first requiring careful watch- 
ing and tender care, they must, moreover, be set in the shade of some 
other trees, to protect them from the scorching of the sun. The cocoa- 
tree resembles somewhat a quince-tree in the crookedness of its stem and 
the irregular growth of its branches ; it frequently attains a height of 
twenty-five or thirty feet, the leaves at first having the appearance of 
mulberry-leaves, changing, as the season advances, from green to all 
shades of purple and gold, crimson, scarlet, or rich hues of brown. 



232 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

After it lias grown to its full size and begins to bear, the cocoa-tree re- 
quires but little care, continuing to yield an abundance of fruit for fifty, 
or, in some instances, as I have already said, for a hundred years. The 
pods containing the beans are oval in shape, about four inches in length, 
and when ripe are variegated in color — some golden brown, speckled, or 
mottled with crimson, others red and purple, flecked with green and 
yellow. They grow not only on twigs pendent from the branches of 
the tree, as do pears and apples, but also hang by flexible stems to the 
trunk of the tree and to the longer boughs, looking, for all the world, 
as if fastened on by wires, like bonbonnieres to Christmas-trees. 

The beans, when stripped of the pods and dried in the sun, resem- 
ble burnt almonds in size and color. Each pod contains from twenty to 
thirty beans, all neatly fitted into five regularly shaped compartments. 

In the parts of the island we visited during our drive, there were 
to be seen many bread-fruit-trees {Artocarjjus incisa), growing in all 
their beauty. In shape, foliage, and especially in rich and varied 
shades, the green of its leaves contrasting sharply with the mellow 
brown of the fruit itself, this wonderful, wide-spreading tree is very 
pleasant to the sight, overshadowing the houses and protecting flocks 
and herds from the heat of noonday. 

The bread-fruit is said to have been introduced from the islands of 
the South Pacific in the middle of the last century. It is related that 
the ship Bounty, celebrated in the history of mutineers, was loaded 
with plants intended for importation into the Caribbees when that 
vessel made her last memorable voyage, whereof who has not read the 
exciting story ? This transplantation of the bread-fruit was brought 
about by West Indian planters, who saw in the native bread of the 
South Sea Islands a supply of cheap food for hungry field-hands on 
their sugar-estates. The climate of the Caribbees "was found to be 
perfectly suited to its growth ; it flourishes there as vigorously as in its 
native islands, growing to a height of forty or fifty feet, with shapely 
trunks, putting forth branches twenty feet or more above the ground, 
throwing out many boughs, all thickly covered with broad, glossy 



GRENADA. 233 

leaves of dark green, from ten to fifteen inches in length. The ripe 
fruit is oval or nearly round, of the size of a child's head, and is covered 
with a rough rind, with lozenge-shaped divisions like a pineapple ; 
when young it is bright green, gradually becoming brown or of an 
olive hue, until fully ripe, when it assumes a deep yellow, the color of 
guinea gold. When over-ripe this globe contains a watery, yellow pulp 
of spongy matter, unpleasant to the taste ; at an earlier stage it is 
mealy, and of a consistency resembling fresh bread. If properly baked 
or roasted, and nicely browned, it is very nutritious, but somewhat in- 
sipid and sweetish to the taste, lacking salt. The cooked fruit will keep 
for weeks. The tree produces two or three crops a year in some of the 
islands (St. Yincent and Grenada notably, where it is most used by 
the negroes) and edible pulp may be had for eight or nine months of the 
twelve. From the fibre of the inner bark of this tree is made a coarse, 
serviceable cloth ; its gum is used to calk boats ; the wood is soft and 
light, of a beautiful greenish yellow when first cut, becoming a rich 
mahogany color when seasoned. The bread-fruit-tree requires no care 
— it grows wild, in the valleys and on the hill-sides, by the road, in gar- 
dens, and in open meadows. 

While describing the cocoa- and the bread-fruit-tree I have made 
a wide departure from my account of our ride to the interior of Gre- 
nada ; for that reason the story of our journey must needs be made 
the subject of another chapter. 



CHAPTER XX. 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 



A Wonderful Procession. — A Curious Orchestra of Silent Reeds. — "Gib me sixpence, an 
I tell you."— Morne des Sauteurs. — Historical Notes. — French Conquest of Gre- 
nada. — Its Capture by the English. — A Plague of Ants. 

^.EENADA is not an island of 
^=k sugar-plantations, as is Barba- 
dos ; the planters have turned 
their attention, as we have 
seen, and very wisely, to the 
cultivation of other staples, 
notably cocoa ; probably for 
this reason, the sugar-estates 
we saw were by no means 
as well ordered or equipped 
with machinery as those on 
other islands. This greatly 
contributes to the picturesque 
effect of the scenery. Instead of 
unsightly chimneys belching clouds 
of smoke, engine and boiler sheds, 
ugly, matter-of-fact nuisances, 
there are frequently to be seen 
vine-draped windmills, with out- 
stretched sails, looming large against the sky. Thatched storehouses 
there are, and farm-buildings, all lending a quaint beauty to the land- 




A Mount. 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 235 

scape, although they may not bear witness to the enterprise and pros- 
perity of their owners. 

Many of the methods of cultivating the land and harvesting the 
crops are primitive, the implements in common use being by no means 
of improved patterns. There are few carts ; such as we saw were drawn 
by the most motley of teams — a horse and an ass, or either one of them 
and an ox, being often seen yoked together. At one place on the road 
we overtook the oddest imaginable procession — indeed, it was, out of 
all whooping, strange and marvellous. Reader, can you imagine a 
caravan of walking haycocks ? Birnam wood on its historic march to 
Dunsinane would have presented a no more astounding spectacle than 
the one I am now about to describe. "We saw — rubbed our eyes, 
looked again — we still beheld, proceeding leisurely before us, up an 
incline in the highway a row of moving masses of sugar-cane. Had 
we come upon a procession of men as trees walking, we would not 
have been more startled, or, for a time at least, mystified. The single 
file of the odd parade kept on the even tenor of its way ; the lower 
side of the masses of cane scraped along the ground, raising no incon- 
siderable amount of dust, and leaving a trail which gave the middle of 
the road the appearance of having been lightly touched by a sweeping 
machine. Until we had passed the hindermost cane-stack we could 
discover no motive power ; nor could we guess how or by what means 
it progressed. When we obtained a front view of it, we became aware 
of the enormous ears and meek face of a diminutive ass peering out of 
the midst of the immense bundle of green. A more ridiculous sight 
than that presented by a donkey playing the part of needle in a bottle 
of hay has not been seen since the days of Balaam. We wondered, 
first, how the patient beast could stagger along under such a prepos- 
terous load ; then we marvelled how so grand a superstructure could 
have been heaped up, built, and balanced on so small a foundation, as 
if a pyramid had been stood upon its apex — the beast resembled an 
owl in a green- wood -tree, the cane-stack being sufficiently large to fill 
one corner of a large barn. Each half-dozen of the bundles was in 



236 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

charge of a darky, who walked in front of his charge with lofty step, 
as proud as the keeper of the Akhoond of Swat's private elephants. 
Upon closer investigation, we found that each of the jacks and jennies 
had, firmly strapped upon their sweating backs by means of girths 
and broad surcingles, compassing them amidships and fore and aft, an 
ungainly saddle of huge dimensions, to either side of which were 
fastened two strong arms of wood. Into these the cane was laid paral- 
lel to the ass' vertebra, so that the stalks projected forward of its 
nose, and rearward as far as its outstretched tail might reach. In this 
way a bundle was built up until a broad platform was raised level with 
the tips of the beast's ears ; upon this more cane was placed at right 
angles, higher again, from stem to stern. When all was reared and 
finally built, the mass was bound and strapped together, fastened to 
the ass by straw-ropes or liana-withes, so that, necessarily, in the 
event of this strange burden being carried away by the force of a 
hurricane, the ass must needs go with it, whirling through space, to 
the astonishment of all good folks who have never seen the cow jump 
over the moon. When these cane-bundles had been conveyed from 
the field to the crushing-mill and Sir Ass was lightened of his load, he 
stood meekly gazing, in an attitude of utter despair, seemingly be- 
wildered and put to shame by the incomprehensible absurdity of the 
practical joke that had been played upon him. 

Almost every darky we met, either going or coming, was munch- 
ing sugar-cane, different-sized pieces of which they carried in their 
hands or balanced on their heads when for a moment their owners' 
attention was called away from the sweet employment of feasting 
upon the same. When feeding, some darkies sucked away at an end 
of the cane as if engaged in playing upon a flageolet or other per- 
pendicular reed instrument ; others gnawed the side as if it were a 
piccolo, flute, or wry-necked fife. The effect was strange, not to say 
ridiculous ; one could not help imagining the whole population of the 
rural districts of Grenada to be a race of pastoral musicianers en- 
gaged in playing imaginary music, softly practising "sweet ditties of 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 237 

no tone." " Heard melodies are sweet," but the linked sweetness of 
those unheard symphonies, long-drawn out, were doubtless more de- 
lectable to, and more to the taste of, this simple folk, who gathered 
sweetness all the day from every ripening cane-piece. 

As we passed by one of the largest cocoa-groves, I desired to 
possess and carry away some of the cocoa-pods of the brightest color- 
ing. To that end, I offered a sixpence to a small boy who sat list- 
lessly by the way-side, " fly-gobbling " in the sunshine, if he would 
gather half a dozen of the coveted fruit from a tree growing by the 
roadside, outside of the stone wall shutting in a cocoatiere from 
the public highway. The tree was on the way-side ; therefore I im- 
agined its fruit, like the apples on trees growing outside of fences 
along our Northern roads, was the property of any passer-by. I was 
unable to induce the youngster to serve me in this matter, although 
the bribe equalled half a day's wages of a full-grown Grenadian field- 
hand. I afterward learned that whoever picks cocoa-pods, whether 
growing in enclosures or on the wayside, runs the risk of fine and im- 
prisonment. Cocoa-beans readily pass for money in this and other 
islands where they are staple ; and, to prevent picking and stealing, 
fines are imposed, and imprisonment is meted out to any person, es- 
pecially any black person, caught gathering the pods, or having any of 
them in his possession without being able to show a clear and un- 
doubted title to them. We saw teak- and mahogany-trees, some of 
considerable size, and doubtless of great value ; in the gardens there 
were nutmegs, cloves, and Other spices ; there were limes, sappodiilas, 
mangoes, citrons — not one of all the fruits and flowers to be seen in 
other islands was wanting. There were oranges galore, to be had for 
sixpence, for a penny, for nothing, save the trouble of plucking them, 
and none that we tasted in all our wanderings were juicier or more 
fragrant. There were coffee- plants, but not in such abundance as at 
Martinique. As for the palms, a botanist, if so minded, might have 
made a catalogue of all the varieties to be found in all the Caribbees ; 
the voyageur was there in greater numbers, growing more luxuriantly 



238 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

than elsewhere ; the season, being more advanced in this than in 
more Northern islands, displayed more flowers in full bloom, more 
ripening fruits, the aspect of the country was more tropical, bearing 
testimony to a richer summer. 

" But I don't love your cat'logue style — do you ? 
As if to sell off natur' by vendoo. 

'Nuff sed." 

We were enchanted by all we saw, and in our enthusiasm unani- 
mously declared it would be useless to travel farther in search of a 
more fascinating or as beautiful an Eden. "When the humming- 
bird declares which of all the flowers he sips in the long summer- 
time is loveliest and sweetest to his taste, then will travellers in this 
fairy-land be able to declare which of the Lesser Antilles most charms 
his senses and easiest wins his heart. 

When we returned to town the Doctor and I strolled up the prin- 
cipal street, over the ridge, past the church — an ancient building after 
the style of English parish churches of one hundred and fifty years 
ago — a nd, descending a steep lane, came to a market-place on the four 
sides of which are rows of low stone dwellings roofed with tiles. 
Under the trees sat women selling cassava — casada, they pronounced 
it. Others had small heaps of charcoal piled in front of them, a 
few handf uls in each heap ; some dealt in plantains, cocoa-nuts, or 
fruit. 

The entire stock-in-trade of these sellers was so insignificant, the 
traffickers themselves so simple in manner and seemingly so indifferent, 
in their good-for-nothing laziness, whether they sold or not — for they 
stared at us, not impudently, but in respectful wonderment at our out- 
landish appearance — they reminded one more of overgrown children 
j)laying market than grown folks trying to make a living by trade. 
We saw no buyers, and were not solicited to purchase. We wondered 
if they ever sold anything, or could make change for a sixpence. All 
of them, however, besought us to give them a dime, a sixpence, a 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 



239 



penny, something " to buy bread " — all had that formula on their 
tongues' end, " to buy bread " — even those who had cassava bread for 
sale. So ran the word from mouth to mouth along the line : " Beg 
yo' a dime, sah ; " "I should like yo' ter gib me a penny, massa ; " 
"Dear massa, I would take sixpence 
if yo' be so good " — and ever in cho- 
rus the refrain, " To buy bread." 

One old crone, who sat in the 
shade of a mango-tree, more vehe- 
mently than all the rest of her sisters 
lifted up her voice, exhorting us to 
be charitable. On the ground before 
her lay a bunch of plantains, old, 
faded, and shrivelled, as uninviting 
as the beldam herself ; charcoal had 
she, also, as black as her face ; and 
six or seven yams that had served 
her for play-marketing for many 
days. From time to time this woe- 
begone old aunty cried to us : " Beg yo' 
a penny ! Beg yo' a penny, massa ! 
For de lub of heaben ! See de old 
cripple! See de loss I hab to 
mourn ! One foot gone ! Massa', 
don' pass by, beg you a penny ! " 
Sure enough the poor creature had / ' 1 

but one foot ; of this she afforded us ; 

Molasses. 

abundant proof, flourishing her mis- 
fortune before us, flaunting her woe in our faces. We stopped before 
her ; she displayed her remaining foot and both her ankles for our 
inspection — they were part of her stock-in-trade. I thought it chari- 
table to buy something of her, and accordingly priced each of the 
articles she had for sale, and found I could close out, all and sundry, 




240 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

her interest in the market for an insignificant sum. The Doctor 
asked : " Aunty, how did you lose your foot 1 n As promptly as 
she had named to me the price of her comestibles, she made re- 

" Gib me sixpence, an' I tell yo' how I loss me foot." 

There is little space to manoeuvre a ship of the size of the Barra- 
couta in the harbor of St. George ; therefore, when we were ready to 
sail a hawser was made fast ashore, and, by using the steam capstan 
on board the steamer, the vessel's bow was gradually swung round, as 
she went slowly ahead, and in a few minutes we passed through the 
narrow breach in the sea-wall of the crater. At four o'clock in the 
afternoon we were clear of the land. 

Shortly after the pilot left us we discovered, far ahead of us, the 
most southerly of the Grenadines, for so is called the archipelago 
stretching from Grenada to the southern point of the island of St. 
Vincent. An hour later we were abreast of the most northwesterly 
point of Grenada, a rugged promontory called Morne des Sauteurs — 
the Place of the Leapers. 

A grim, unholy legend haunts about these crags, a story of ruth- 
less conquest, of merciless pursuit, of mad struggle to escape ; here in 
1650 the French invaders from Martinique, under the lead of Du Par- 
quet, found a band of one hundred Caribs, escaped from the indis- 
criminate massacre by their .enemies who sought to drive them from 
the island. The white men fell upon the savages, killed such as 
made any resistance or effort to defend themselves, put nearly one- 
half of the band to the sword, and drove the rest to the verge of the 
precipice. There the Caribs made a last desperate stand. They were 
again overpowered, and the luckless remnant threw themselves head- 
long down the cliff, preferring to be dashed to pieces on the rocks or 
perish miserably in the sea to being taken alive and sold into slavery 
by their relentless foemen. In this way M. Du Parquet (then Govern- 
or of Martinique) obliged the Caribs, " out of a consideration of their 
own concernments, grounded principally on the great advantages they 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 241 

received from the neighborhood of the French, to leave them [the 
French, forsooth] quietly possessed of " Grenada. 

ThisDu Parquet was a nephew of M. D'Esnambuc who in 1623, as 
we have seen, colonized St. Christopher ; the expedition which he led 
against Grenada from Martinique' numbered about two hundred and 
fifty men. Of the success of this invasion of the island by European 
Christians, the Morne des Sauteurs stands an accusing monument — a 
monument to refined cruelty and inhuman lust. 

Before the coming of the French, an old historian says : " The na- 
tives are gentle and mild in manners . . . have many villages, 
where they live pleasantly and without disturbance ; they are a hos- 
pitable race, and supply strangers that come near their coasts with the 
bread of the country" (cassava) ; " they readily barter their possessions 
for such trinkets as are offered to them." According to Du Tertre, the 
French under Du Parquet gave the Caribs some knives, hatchets, and 
a large quantity of glass beads, besides two bottles of brandy for the 
chief himself ; " and thus," proudly boasts this reverend father, " the 
island was fairly ceded by the natives themselves to the French nation 
in lawful purchase." This Du Tertre was an adventurous priest ; he 
shared all the perils of the colonizing Frenchmen, administered the 
sacrament to the soldiers of Du Parquet when they embarked on their 
expedition to Grenada ; and again, when they landed on that devoted 
island, where they erected a cross on the shore they had taken posses- 
sion of in the name of His Majesty of France, it was Du Tertre who 
compelled the wondering heathen to kneel down before this emblem 
of divine love and compassion for mankind, scourging them to their 
knees to listen in terror while the white strangers, who until then had 
been reverenced as gods by the simple folk, offered up the mockery 
of a prayer to Almighty God, beseeching him to put the heathen 
under his feet, especially supplicating the just and merciful Creator 
to vouchsafe his favor while they beguiled the unsuspecting Caribs out 
of their possessions. Du Parquet, being compelled temporarily to re- 
turn to Martinique, turned the command of his forces in Grenada over 
16 



242 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

to one of his captains, Le Compte by name, a valiant soldier, espe- 
cially lauded by Du Tertre as a man of remarkable " clemency and 
humanity." 

The Caribs did not long remain in ignorance of the treachery, prac- 
tised upon them by the French, whereby they had been defrauded of 
their birthright and deprived of the land of their ancestors. They pro- 
tested against the iniquitous bargain into the making of which they 
had been betrayed ; but they appealed in vain to their rapacious and 
unjust invaders, and when driven to desperation, they declared war 
eight months after the arrival of the Europeans on their island. The 
Commander-in-chief returned from Martinique, the army under Le 
Compte was re-enforced, and a fearful struggle ensued, during which 
the French attempted, and very nearly succeeded in their effort, to ex- 
terminate the natives. This war really came to an end for want of 
combatants shortly after the horrible episode I have related of the 
Place of the Leapers. Among other atrocities of which the historian 
Du Tertre makes mention is the story of a Carib girl, twelve or thir- 
teen years of age, who was taken prisoner, and claimed by two French 
officers as their individual share of the booty. Their dispute led to 
blows, and, the quarrel being taken up by their respective commands, 
the discipline of the camp being disturbed ; a third officer, for the sake 
of peace and quietness, ended the matter by shooting the girl through 
the head. When the Caribs, save and excepting a few who escaped 
to inaccessible mountain-strongholds, had been put to the sword, the 
white men rooted up their plantations, burnt their villages, and returned 
to Martinique, Men joyeux, to sing Te Deum over the success of 
their crusade, chanting masses for the souls of their victims, who, ac- 
cording to Du Tertre, were slain for the glory of God and his 
church. 

In this lamentable fashion perished the Caribs of Grenada ; by 
these methods of warfare a jewel was added to the crown of France. 
Davies, in his "History of the West Indies," closes his account of the 
conquest of this island in words which plainly indicate that he was not 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 243 

unmindful of the quick retort that might be made to his countrymen 
of Antigua were he to reproach the French with having acted cruelly 
in their conquests. He says : 

. . . " And if it be objected to the French that they forced 
the natural inhabitants out of St. Christopher, Guadeloupe, . . . 
Martinique, and other islands, it may be said that the French at 
first only proposed no other design than the edification and instruc- 
tion of those barbarians, and if they have been forced to use a 
severe hand and treat them as enemies, the Caribs were the first 
aggressors." 

When the French had exterminated the Caribs and possessed 
their lands, they fell into a dispute over the division of the spoils. 
A civil war ensued, which raged with great fury for several years. 
Peace was ultimately restored, and the colony flourished under French 
rule for more than a century, until 1762, when it was captured by the 
English, who, by the terms of a treaty made at the end of the follow- 
ing year, were confirmed in their possession of it. 

Grenada was, however, retaken by the French in 1779, and that 
nation continued to hold it until 1783, when it was finally ceded to 
Great Britain by the treaty of Amiens. 

The years succeeding the restoration of the British to their holding 
of the island were years of terrible disaster. Yellow fever broke out 
in the towns, and, before the pestilence had abated its fury, hundreds 
of colonists fell victims to its attack. This visitation was followed 
by another no less disastrous to the prosperity of Grenada — a plague 
of ants similar to that which a few years before had devastated Marti- 
nique. These pests, originally introduced into the islands from Africa 
in the slave-ships, multiplied with such marvellous rapidity that in a 
short time they completely overran the country, destroying the crops, 
devouring every living green thing. Bryan Edwards says of the in- 
calculable damage worked by them in Grenada : 

" I have seen the roads colored by them for miles together ; they 
destroyed nearly every sugar-plantation in the island, and were par- 



244 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

ticularly destructive of the lime, lemon, and orange-trees ; they did 
not, indeed, feed upon the trees or the cane, but the damage was done 
by their boring around the roots of the vegetation unfavorably affected 
by them. They fed on carcasses of dead animals, fish, and birds ; they 
destroyed vermin, like rats, agouti, and attacked the poultry and small 
stock. All attempts to exterminate them, or even check their 
ravages, were useless, although a reward of £20,000 was offered to the 
discoverer of any practical method of destroying them. The planters, 
in despair, had been almost driven into abandoning the cultivation of 
sugar-cane, and the people of the island were reduced to great distress 
and were in desperate straits, when this calamity, which had baffled all 
their care and skill, was removed by the destruction of their towns and 
houses, the almost total annihilation of the results of years of cultiva- 
tion and industry, by a frightful hurricane, by the violence of which 
heavy pieces of artillery were removed from their places, and houses 
and sugar-works levelled with the ground ... or torn out by 
the roots. The deluge of rain by which this tempest was accompanied 
flooded the fields and valleys, and thus, it is imagined, the principal 
destruction of these ants must have been effected." The people of 
Grenada were destined to sup full of horrors ; theirs seemed a land to 
hastening ills a prey, for scarcely had prosperity begun to dawn upon 
them, when the inhabitants of this plague-stricken island were visited 
by a more horrible trial than had yet befallen them. " The spirit of 
the French "Revolution sowed anarchy and civil war in their midst, 
and the consequences were most disastrous to the peace and welfare 
of the colony ; the reign of terror which ensued almost depopulated 
the island, and it was not until after the beginning of the present 
century that Grenada began to recover from all the accumulation of 
horrors that had for so long brooded over the island and threatened 
to reduce it to an uninhabited wilderness." 

But I will find place to say more concerning this epoch in the 
history of the Caribbees when I come, in proper turn, to write of the 
island of St. Lucia. 



DRIVE THROUGH GRENADA. 



245 



At sunset the Barracouta was off the north end of Grenada, hold- 
ing an east-northeast course, bound again for Barbados. In the short 
twilight we passed close to one of the Grenadines, an uninhabited 
rock called London Bridge and leaving it astern held on our way, 
under the silent stars, out on the Atlantic Ocean. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

ST. LUCIA. 

Its Settlement. — Carib Wars. — Struggle between English and French for its Possession. 
— The Gibraltar of the West Indies. — Warfare for a Century and a Half. — Rodney. 
— Sir John Moore. — Final Cession of the Island to Great Britain. 

On our second visit to Barbados we remained but an hour or two, 
leaving that island late on the day after our departure from Grenada. 
The following morning as the sun arose behind us, we were close to 
St. Lucia. Coasting around the northern promontories of the isl- 
and, we headed toward the south, and presently ran into smooth 
water under the lee of the mountains. On our left hand, extending 
as far as the eye could reach, the shore-line rose grandly from the sea. 
In general appearance the island of St. Lucia resembles Dominica ; it 
presents the same succession of peaks and promontories, of gentle slope 
and steep acclivity. A grander or more romantic landscape than that 
presented by the wide-sweeping view may not be imagined — it is 
incomparably beautiful. What wonder that two mighty nations 
contended for the possession of St. Lucia, as the Greeks and Trojans 
waged war for the guardianship of fair Helen of old ? 

Of all the Windward Islands, St. Lucia is the most interesting to 
the student of history — to those who delight in the story of battles 
upon land or on the sea. This Caribbee, so little known to the pres- 
ent generation, so rarely heard of, of so little commercial impor- 
tance nowadays, was, for a century and a half, the scene of continu- 
ous warfare, of a ceaseless contest waged for its possession — " England 
against all the world in arms.'" Time after time her soldiers carried 



ST. LUOIA. 247 

the ocean-fortress by storm ; year by year her fleets engaged either in 
its capture or defence. As often as St. Lucia was wrested from the 
French by force of arms, just so often was it restored to them by the 
terms of treaties of peace, and then the struggle began anew, always to 
end in the discomfiture of the nation which regained the island by 
diplomacy, inevitably to lose it when hard knocks were to be given 
or received. In the history of this little island there is material for an 
epic, ready to the hand of him who shall receive inspiration to sing of 
all the wars and mighty conflicts carried on for ages on and near its 
historic shores. 

In the year 1605, as I have elsewhere recorded, the English ship 
Olive Blossom arrived at Barbados, and, sailing thence on her voy- 
age to the Spanish Main, touched at St. Lucia. Her master, Captain 
Cataline, took possession of the island in the name of King James I. 
of England. In compliance with their own request, sixty-seven colo- 
nists were set on shore with their dunnage and a few stores, then the 
Olive Blossom continued on her voyage. In less than two months 
after the landing of these adventurous white men the Caribs descended 
upon the English settlement, and all the colonists who were not mas- 
sacred in the first attack were driven from the island. In 1635 the 
King of France, with free and easy and right royal munificence, " made 
grant to Messieurs Latine and Du Plessis" — the latter, judging by his 
name, may have been a favored kinsman of Cardinal Richelieu — " of 
all" — all — "the unoccupied lands in America " — not in North America, 
mark you, nor yet in South America — but in all parts of America, from 
Cape Horn to — well, as far north as there is land, beyond the farthest 
north of Greely. The French king was playing Don Magnifico — his 
gift was princely — all unoccupied lands then discovered, or thereafter 
to be discovered, in half of the world ! The two favored grantees 
modestly selected the island of Martinique as their place of residence, 
leaving the Caribs, for a time at least, in peaceable possession of St. 
Lucia. In 1639 a company of English settlers, under the rights sup- 
posed to have been acquired by England by reason of the attempted 



248 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

colonization of the island thirty-four years before, ignoring altogether 
the grant by the French king, above mentioned, landed on St. Lucia, 
claiming it as a British possession, regardless of the protests of the 
natives, and began the establishment of a colony. 

Scarcely had they laid the foundations of their settlements when 
the Caribs, stirred to hostility by the French of Martinique, or out- 
raged by an attempt to carry oft' some of their countrymen into slavery, 
fell upon the English, and served them as they had served their pre- 
decessors in 1605, massacring all they could lay their hands upon, and 
expelling the survivors from the island. In 1642 the King of France, 
persistently assuming a right to sovereignty over St. Lucia, ceded it 
by edict to the French West India Company, together with " all his 
other possessions in America." 

In 1650 this corporation made a sale of St. Lucia, together with the 
island of Grenada, to Messieurs Houel and Du Parquet for the sum of 
forty-one thousand livres, that is to say, one thousand six hundred and 
sixty pounds sterling, which may have been a fair price — probably 
all the island was worth — seeing that but twenty -four years before 
Peter Minuit had purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for 
sixty guilders. 

In the following year M. Du Parquet was appointed governor of 
his firm's assets. He erected a fort on St. Lucia, and founded a settle- 
ment of forty colonists, whom he sent to the West Indies under the 
command of one Chouselan. This deputy governor had married a 
Carib woman, and was therefore supposed to possess great influence 
with the natives. The death of Chouselan was followed two years 
later by that of M. Du Parquet himself, and for a time the colonists 
were kept in a state of continual alarm, either by the threatened or 
active hostility of the warlike savages. 

In 1660 a treaty was concluded between the French and English on 
the one hand and the Caribs on the other, whereby it was covenanted 
and agreed, that the natives should abandon all claim to the Lesser 
Antilles in consideration of the promise made to them that they, in 



ST. LUCIA. 249 

turn, should be left in peaceable possession of the islands of St. Vin- 
cent and Dominica. The Caribs found themselves in a similar pre- 
dicament to a surprised wayfarer who, beset by two lusty rogues, is 
permitted to retain his brass spectacles in consideration of his deliv- 
ering up forthwith a well-filled wallet and his golden snuffbox. This 
treaty of peace, as may well be imagined, did not continue long invio- 
late, for the parties of the first part, ignoring entirely the high con- 
tracting parties of the second part, began to contend with one another 
for the possession of St. Lucia, and this warfare between France and 
England continued almost uninterruptedly for one hundred and sixty 
years. 

Some idea of the importance of St. Lucia as a military and naval 
station may be gathered from the fact that both nations never hesi- 
tated to make vast sacrifices of troops and treasure for its capture or 
in its defence. 

Many years after the time of which I have been writing a French 
governor of the island, in a report made to the first Napoleon, asserted 
it had always been the intention of France to make St. Lucia the capi- 
tal of the Antilles, the chief of her possessions in the "West Indies, 
" the Gibraltar of the Gulf of Mexcio." Admiral Eodney, in a let- 
ter written by him in 1772 to the Earl of Sandwich, makes use of the 
following language : " I had lately the honor to present to your lordship 
a copy of a letter I thought it my duty to send to the king's minister, 
. . . pointing out the great consequence of retaining some of the 
conquered islands, particularly Martinique or St. Lucia ; and though, 
at that time, I preferred the retention of Martinique, I am now fully 
convinced that St. Lucia is of more consequence to Britain. . . 
Either of these islands in the hands of Great Britain must, while she 
remains a great maritime power, make her sovereign of the "West In- 
dies." 

The inhabitants of Barbados had long been plotting the capture 
of St. Lucia, and in 1664 (this was the year that Peter Stuyvesant 
surrendered New Amsterdam to Colonel Nicholls) they invaded the 



250 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

island, and fought a bloody engagement with the French, in which the 
latter were defeated. The Barbadians took possession of St. Lucia, and 
held it for three years until, by the Treaty of Breda, it was awarded to 
France, and the exiled Frenchmen quickly re-established themselves in 
their old settlements. What the English had gained by the sword, 
France retook by a stroke of the pen. Notwithstanding the terms of 
this treaty the English made frequent attempts at recapture, and as 
often as war broke out between France and England St. Lucia became 
the scene of outrage and slaughter. In the many battles fought for 
its possession the English usually had the best of it, but France in 
the end always secured the advantage when the claims of the two na- 
tions were adjusted by treaty. 

In 1728 forces of both nations occupied strong positions in the isl- 
and, and their commanders agreed, in order to avoid further effusion of 
blood, to consider St. Lucia neutral territory until the pretensions of 
their respective countries had been definitely settled by the statesmen 
at home. Thereupon both parties withdrew from the island. By the 
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 the neutrality of St. Lucia was rec- 
ognized by the home governments, but, as usual, little attention was 
paid to the decision by either the French or English settlers of Marti- 
nique or Barbados, for disregarding all treaties and agreements, they 
continually attempted to take advantage of one another, at all times 
and in all manners, lawfully or unlawfully. 

On the renewal of hostilities between France and England in 1756, 
Martinique was captured by British forces under General Monckton, 
operating in conjunction with a fleet commanded by Admiral Rodney. 
St. Lucia as usual, was retaken by the English, and remained under 
British rule until 1763, when, by the terms of the Treaty of Paris, 
a division was made of the neutral islands, and it once more fell into 
the hands of the French, who took immediate steps to establish their 
authority permanently on the island. They laid the foundation of 
a colonial government upon a scale of imposing grandeur, establish- 
ing themselves more securely than ever before, and were prepared, 



ST. LUCIA. - 251 

as they thought, for any emergency, when the war broke out afresh in 
1778. At once England devoted all the resources at her command in 
a desperate attempt to drive her old enemies out of St. Lucia. It was 
at this time Rodney wrote the letter to the Earl of Sandwich from 
which I have quoted. His suggestions, it is needless to say, were 
promptly acted upon by the home government of the day. Orders 
were issued to Sir Henry Clinton, then in command of the British 
forces at New York, to send an expedition to the West Indies. On the 
same day on which the fleet under Admiral Rodney left Sandy Hook, a 
French fleet under Count d'Estaing sailed from Boston for the same 
destination. The " two squadrons sailed in parallel and not far distant 
courses" toward the Caribbean island, but the British out-sailed their 
adversaries, and joined the fleet already on the station under the com- 
mand of Admiral Barrington. In December, 1T78, the British vessels 
entered the bay at Grand Cul-de-sac, the troops effecting a landing with- 
out meeting any resistance from the French, who had shut themselves 
up in their fortifications. Early in the following year a. bloody battle 
was fought at the Vigie, a fortress commanding Castries Harbor. 

The French were defeated, and Count d'Estaing sailed away, leav- 
ing St. Lucia in the possession of the English, who fortified themselves 
so strongly upon the island that in after years, under Rodney, Hood, 
and other great sailors, they bore down on their enemies the French, 
the Dutch, the Spaniards, in every part of the Caribbean Sea, pursu- 
ing their fleets, capturing their convoys, storming their forts, and 
blockading their ports. In 1782 Rodney's fleet, one division of which 
was commanded by Sir Samuel Hood, set sail from Castries Harbor in 
pursuit of the French squadrons of Count De Grasse, the English 
overtaking their enemies on the sea between Dominica and Guade- 
loupe. At seven o'clock in the morning of April 12th was fought 
one of the bloodiest and most obstinately contested naval battles ever 
waged between rivals. 

Rodney almost annihilated the French squadrons, gaining a signal 
victory, capturing the flag-ship Yille de Paris, and taking the French 



252 DOWN TUB ISLANDS. 

admiral prisoner. Thus he saved to England her possessions in the 
West Indies, ruined the naval power of France, and gave the finishing 
blow to the war, thereby encouraging Great Britain to insist upon less 
humiliating terms of peace than she otherwise would have been able 
to obtain, for although, by the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed 
January 20th of the following year, England lost her thirteen North 
American colonies, in other respects she was able, by reason of .Rod- 
ney's victory, to dictate her own terms. 

For this service to his country Rodney was elevated to the peer- 
age ; received a pension of two thousand pounds for himself and his 
heirs ; had the distinguished honor of sitting to Sir Joshua [Reynolds 
for his portrait, and when he died, ten years afterward, was rewarded 
with a monument in St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Under the terms of the treaty spoken of above, England, having 
received back several of her more ancient colonies, once more gave up 
St. Lucia and in 1784 that island passed again under French rule. 
Grenada also having been restored to Great Britain, her French gov- 
ernor was transferred to Castries, where he did not long continue in 
peaceful possession of his office, for, at the outbreak of the French Revo- 
lution, the people of St. Lucia raised the tricolor on Morne Fortune and 
drove him away from the island. All work on the sugar-estates was 
stopped ; the planters deserted their properties ; " the negroes armed, 
and discussed the rights of man." 

" The Revolutionary National Convention declared the negroes, in 
deed and fact, ' men and brothers,' conferring upon St. Lucia the dis- 
tinguished title ' the Faithful.' The spirit of anarchy infected the 
neighboring islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and the reign of terror 
which ensued was no less marked by frightful atrocities and frenzied 
license than it was in the cities and towns of France. 1 ' The Direc- 
toire appointed General Ricord Governor of St. Lucia. Historians 
with one accord denounce him as a blood-thirsty tyrant, a fit associate 
of Marat and Robespierre. Be that as it may, for one act, and prob- 
ably for that one act alone, and it is enough, he deserves the com- 



ST. LUCIA. 253 

mendation of his fellow-men. He arrived in St. Lucia on February 3, 
1793 ; and on February 4, 1794, abolished negro slavery throughout the 
French Antilles, forty years before Great Britain purchased the free- 
dom of her slaves in the West Indies and elsewhere throughout the 
world, by paying therefor nearly twenty million pounds sterling. It 
was, moreover, sixty-nine years before Lincoln declared the abolition of 
slavery in the United States. 

What wonder the French Revolution was regarded by the negroes 
of St. Lucia as indeed their day of jubilee ? Why should they not 
have hailed Ricord as their friend and liberator ? 

The war, which had again broken out between England and France, 
raged with redoubled fury. On March 20, 1794, Sir John Jervis, af- 
terward Earl St. Vincent, captured Martinique, and eight days later 
H. R. II. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Yictoria, 
raised the British flag on Morne Fortune. By this act St. Lucia once 
more became a British colony. The re-establishment of slavery was 
coincident with the return of the English to the island, or, to put it 
more accurately, the English ignored entirely the terms of the procla- 
mation of emancipation of Citizen Ricord, treating it as if it had never 
been issued. 

The freed insurgent slaves retreated to the forests and mountain- 
fastnesses, and being joined by the remnant of the revolutionary 
French soldiers, continued, to wage a harassing guerilla warfare for 
many months against the British soldiery. 

Toward the close of the year 1794 Robespierre sent Citizen Yictor 
Hughes from France as commissioner to Guadeloupe, while Citizen 
Goyraud was sent in command of an expedition to St. Lucia. So sud- 
denly was Goyraud's movement executed that, within a few days, with 
the exception of two forts, the island was entirely in possession of the 
French. 

In April, 1795, the English, having been re-enforced, gained a tem- 
porary advantage over the enemy, but were finally defeated, and in 
June driven from the island, being compelled to retreat in such hot 



254 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

haste that they left behind them some of their women and children, 
who were well treated by their captors, and shortly afterward sent to 
Martinique under a flag of truce. Later in the same year the Repub- 
licans fitted out, at St. Lucia, an expedition against St. Vincent, and 
nearly succeeded in driving the English off that island. In December 
Victor Hughes followed up his success by invading Martinique, 
which, as we have seen, was at that time in the possession of the 
English, who, but for the timely arrival of re- enforcements, would 
have been compelled to evacuate the island. 

Early in 1796 Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercrombie arrived 
at St. Lucia with an army of nearly twelve thousand men. The Re- 
publicans, under Citizen Goyraud, numbering but two thousand, shut 
themselves up in Morne Fortune, overlooking the bay of Castries. A 
division of the English forces under Brigadier- afterward Lieutenant- 
General Sir John Moore, effected a landing at Longueville Bay, a 
short distance along the coast from Castries. In the desperate fight- 
ing which ensued that hero carried himself right gallantly, as was his 
wont. After several sanguinary engagements, in which Moore distin- 
guished himself by leading his troops into the thickest of the fight, the 
Republican forces — consisting almost entirely of negroes, who fought 
bravely and desperately, as men are apt to fight when the reward of 
success is freedom and the penalty of defeat slavery — were over- 
powered, and surrendered as prisoners of war. It is admitted by 
Breen, the historian of St. Lucia, that in all previous wars the ne- 
groes had stood aloof, taking no part with either Frenchmen or Eng- 
lishmen. They had no interest in the issue of the struggle for the 
possession of St. Lucia ; with whichever party the victory finally 
rested, they were sure to remain slaves. "What if the regular labor 
on the plantations was interrupted by the wars that had raged for 
generation after generation, the negroes had no interest in the 
property destroyed, nor title to the land. They neither lost nor 
gained anything, when their masters, were they French or English, 
were driven away. In war-time the negroes became, for the time 



ST. LUCIA. 255 

being, their own masters, with no man to drive them into the fields 
to work. 

But when the miscreant Hughes and his fellow-cutthroat Goy- 
raud (as Breen delights to call them) proclaimed the negroes free, de- 
claring that they might remain freemen if they themselves dared to 
defend their freedom ; when the blacks recognized the fact that the 
English were bent on restoring the ancient order of things, is it any 
wonder they nobly dared, and fought like fiends incarnate ? ; ■ 

Breen says : " They fought with brutal fury and threw otlall com- 
punctions of humanity ? " which probably is the, historian's , way of 
saying they fought like Scots at Bannockburn. • Had : he been writ- 
ing in these later days he might perhaps have likened the^r struggle 
for freedom to the fight to the death waged -, by the Boers but a few 
years ago in the 'Transvaal. To the negroes of St. Lucia the French 
Revolution had a significance it possessed for no othei\clas8 of -men 
that babbled of liberty, fraternity, and equality. The jargon ! about 
"the rights of man" was no. empty shibboleth to them— the rev- 
olution had declared them free, and to their limited understand- 
ings all other forms of so-called civilized government ljieant \slavery-. 
Would that so gallant a soldier, so gentle a hero as Sir. John Moore, 
had been engaged in a more noble and, doubtless to him, a more 
congenial duty than, that of restoring slavery in the island of St^. 
Lucia ! ' ■ - ; . : _ UL -•>.- 

In the midst of all the horrors of the French Revolution, in all the 
long catalogue of crimes committed in the name of liberty, the fact 
that, for a time at least, the black men in the French islands were act- 
ually free, shines out almost the sole good deed in a world of wicked- 
ness; What wonder that the slave eagerly reached out to grasp the 
fair blossom of liberty, even if it grew and was nourished on a dung- 
hill. - - : , . . .':•:,:-..; . ■; ; 

Sir John Moore took possession, of the forts, and English rule was 
restored in St. Lucia. The old order of things was re-established— the 
negroes were again enslaved. The gallant soldier was appointed gov- 



256 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

ernor of St. Lucia, and Abercrombie, sailing away shortly after, re- 
duced St. Vincent and Grenada to English rule. 

Notwithstanding all this fighting and all the bloody, dearly 
bought victories, when the Treaty of Amiens was signed, on March 27, 
1802, St. Lucia was returned to France as of little value. In the war 
which was concluded by this treaty, England had taken Tobago, Mar- 
tinique, St. Lucia, Grenada, and part of San Domingo from France ; 
Trinidad from Spain ; Guiana, Curayoa, and St. Eustatius from the 
Dutch — besides many other places all over the world ; all of which, 
with the exception of Trinidad and Ceylon, were restored by the 
Treaty of Amiens to their former possessors. 

Sir John Moore's duties as governor of St. Lucia, although little 
to his liking, were performed with perfect conscientiousness and 
humanity. The towns and fortresses alone were in the possession of 
his troops, while the mountain-strongholds were held by bands of 
armed negroes, to whom were joined many French prisoners who, hav- 
ing been taken during the war, had escaped from the prisons. These 
refugees, called the Brigands, were armed by agents of the Na- 
tional Assembly of France, and commanded by a Frenchman named 
La Croix, who styled himself, " Commandant l'Armee Francoise dans 
les Bois." Some idea of the hatred of the negroes for the English, 
whom they looked upon as their re-enslavers, may be gathered from 
a letter written about this time by Sir John Moore to his father, in 
which he says, " Their hatred to us and attachment to the Republic is 
great." Before Sir John sailed to Europe, broken in health by the cli- 
mate and the effect of his services in the army, he had succeeded, in a 
measure, in subduing the French army in the woods, and had re- 
stored peace to the much-vexed island. He returned to England in 
1797, and, twelve years afterward, the Forty-second Highlanders, the 
regiment he had led in the hand-to-hand fighting on the hill-sides and 
amid the forests of St. Lucia, received his last order to charge, but a 
few minutes before a cannon-ball shot him from his horse on the bat- 
tle-field of Corunna. 



ST. LUCIA. 257 

On September 29, 1802, Admiral Yillaret, under the terms of the 
Treaty of Amiens, took over the island in the name of the First 
Consul Bonaparte. Slavery, which had been restored by the English, 
was maintained by the then existing government of France, and the 
negroes of the French Antilles lived to regret the days of the Direc- 
toire of Robespierre and his sans culotte lieutenants Hughes and 
Goyraud. The peace ratified by the Treaty of Amiens was broken 
before the end of fifteen months; the war began again, the West 
Indies once more becoming the battle-ground, and St. Lucia, as usual, 
the first object of attack. 

On June 19, 1803, Commodore Samuel Hood sailed from Barba- 
dos to St. Lucia, arriving at that island two days later. The French, 
under General Noques, shut themselves up in Morne Fortune. The 
English bravely stormed the works at the point of the bayonet, and capt- 
ured them after a short resistance. On June 26th General Grinfield, 
in command of the English forces, appointed Brigadier-General Robert 
Brereton to the governorship of St. Lucia ; and that island, after a 
struggle for its possession that had lasted, as I have said, more than 
one hundred and fifty years, finally became a British colony. 
17 



CHAPTER XXII. 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 



Geography of St. Lucia. — Port Castries. — Soufriere Bay and Town. — Diving Darkies. 
— Electioneering. — Creole Ponies. — The Sulphur Mountain. — A Trip along the 
Shore.— The Pitons. 

St. Lucia, which lies in 13° 50' north latitude, 60° 58' west longi- 
tude, twenty-four miles southeast of Martinique and twenty-one 
miles to the northward of St. Vincent, is forty-two miles in length and 
twenty at its greatest breadth ; it has a coast-line of one hundred and 
fifty miles and a surface of one hundred and fifty thousand acres, 
being, with the exception of Guadeloupe and Trinidad, the largest of 
the Lesser Antilles. It is well watered by numerous streams, flowing 
to the sea from the Monies, as the high peaks are called. In the 
rainy season these water-courses, swollen by the floods descending 
from the steeps, overflow their banks, working wide damage in the 
valle} T s and lowlands. 

According to the census of 1881, the population of the island was 
between thirty-eight and thirty-nine thousand. 

There are several excellent anchorages in the many bays that in- 
dent the coast, both on the windward and leeward sides of the island ; 
but those to the windward are difficult of approach, and for that reason, 
as in the other Caribbees, the trade of the colony is carried on at the 
ports on the west or leeward coast. 

As the Barracouta approached the northeastern extremity of St. 
Lucia (as described in the beginning of the last chapter), she passed 
close to Pigeon Island, a high cliff detached a few hundred yards 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 259 

from the mainland, from which advanced position Admiral Rodney 
was wont to observe the French fleet as it manoeuvred under the 
shores of Martinique. When the English were in possession of H. M. 
Sloop-of-war Diamond Rock, communication by means of a signal- 
code was kept up across the twenty or more miles of intervening 
ocean. 

Running southward along the coast for some miles, we came to the 
entrance of the port of Castries, a narrow passage one-third of a mile 
in width, between the headlands of Tapion and the Vigie. This fair- 
way gives access to one of the safest and most commodious harbors in 
the, Caribbees, called Le Carenage until 1785, when the French re- 
named it in honor of Marshal de Castries, the colonial minister of that 
day. The National Assembly, with its rage for changing names and 
overturning the established order of things, forbade the use of this 
latter name of aristocratic origin, declared that Carenage the har- 
bor should thenceforth and forever be called ; but the British, when 
they came into possession of it, restored the old title, and as Castries it 
is known in our times. This anchorage is considered one of the best 
in the "West Indies, and, on this account, is used by the Royal Mail 
steamers as a coaling station. On the southern side of Castries a river 
enters the bay ; beyond it rise the heights of Morne Fortune, crowned 
with ancient fortresses now crumbling into ruin, albeit once the scene 
of terrific assault and desperate defence. At this place is the seat of 
government, now presided over by an administrator (a deputy of the 
Go vernor-in -chief of the British Windward Islands), assisted by an 
executive council and a legislature, all selected as the Queen may 
direct. 

We did not remain long at Castries, but started down the coast, pass- 
ing Grand Cul-de-sac, a noble bay where the English troops, under 
Sir John Moore, effected a landing a few days before the memorable 
attack on the French fortress on Morne Fortune, and, soon after leaving 
this behind, we came in sight of the Pitons des Canaries, towering aloft 
three thousand feet a short distance from the coast. Beyond these, to 



260 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

the south, are to be seen the still more wonderful sugar-loaf Pitons, 
overlooking the southwestern part of the island, and visible in clear 
weather miles and miles at sea. 

In an hour we were anchored in Soufriere Bay, the town of the 
same name being the second in importance and size in St. Lucia. It is 
needless to say that the steamer was at once surrounded by a flotilla of 
small boats, the usual parade of ferrymen, fruit-sellers, washerwomen 
and miscellaneous darkies taking place promptly on our arrival before 
the settlement. There were numerous darky boys, as at Barbados 
and Martinique, in small boats of their own building, who immedi- 
ately, and all uninvited, cast off their shirts and trousers and appeared 
in bathing costumes of startling scantiness, announcing themselves ready 
to dive to the bottom of the sea, should we see fit to tempt them by 
throwing a sixpence overboard. I dropped a small coin into the water 
and was amused to see several small boys disappear headlong from 
the small boats in waiting. I could make out the lithe forms, of the 
swimmers assuming beneath the water the color of antique bronze, as 
the lads cleft the waves obliquely and downward, with remarkable 
rapidity, propelling themselves by lusty strokes. Down, down they 
went, growing greener and greener until they looked like great frogs ; 
in fact, they were as much at home in the water. Twenty feet below 
the surface of the sea one of them reached the coin, made a cup of 
his outstretched hands, caught it, transferred it to his mouth, as- 
sumed an upright attitude, gave a few vigorous kicks, and came to 
the surface with the buoyancy of a cork. Having rid himself of a 
mouthful or two of water, he took the money from his cheek, held it 
aloft, and immediately began clamoring to be again induced to dive by 
further casting of sixpences into the sea. 

So quickly had all this been done that, had we not been watching 
him closely, we could not have believed the youngster had had time to 
catch the sixpence before it reached the bottom ; but there he was, 
ready to dive again, his companions meanwhile swimming around him, 
jabbering away in some unearthly gibberish, presumably exhorting 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 261 

him to the performance of that ceremony known to the youth of 
New England as " going snucks." 

We tried the effect of other sixpences and no matter whether the 
darkies dived for them from the boats, or merely turned heels up in 
the water and swam downward after the coins, or whether we dropped 
the pieces softly into the water or fired them with force edgewise into 
it, there was a splash, a darky disappeared for a few seconds, and 
then popped up again, to begin gabbling to his fellows and to us with 
a volubility passing all belief. Such was the gift of gab of these boys 
that I imagined they might be able to converse with their fellows, 
holding caucuses, while seated on the coral rock at the bottom of the 
sea, fathoms deep among the sea- weed. 

When we had anchored in front of Soufriere I was rowed to the 
beach by two of the diving boys, who, when out of the water, wear 
nothing but the flimsiest excuse for a pair of trousers ; the older of them 
mounted the crown of a straw hat, brimless and frayed at the edges. 
The boat in which I ventured to embark was a leaky pirogue, long, 
narrow, shallow, as crank and upsettable as a racing-shell, as difficult 
to balance as a bicycle. But the little men at the oars and their 
smaller companion at the rudder ferried me safely, and watching their 
chance, put the dugout at the waves rolling toward the beach as if we 
were riding at a stiffish jump and, thank fortune ! with a leap and a 
scramble, we were ashore. I found the rest of the party, who had been 
landed in a sugar-lighter, safe and dry upon the sands, under the 
shadow of great trees that overhang the line of breakers. We were 
surrounded by a troop of negroes, who inspected us from top to toe, 
making audible remarks concerning our appearance, apparel, and gen- 
eral get-up. We evidently inspired them with feelings akin to those 
with which the unsophisticated public of remote isolated villages re- 
gard the showman and lady-riders of a travelling circus on a triennial 
visit to their out-of- the- world neighborhood. 

The darkies were respectful in manner — by no means impudent or 
obtrusive, only curious — and gazed at us as ruminating cattle gaze at 



262 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

strangers to their barn-yard. We spoke to some of them, and invari- 
ably received good-natured replies. I chucked one coal-black mite un- 
der its chubby chin ; it crowed, doubled up its fists, and grinned spaci- 
ously, showing two white teeth that sparkled in the sunshine. I have 
always laid the flattering unction to my soul that had my nomination 
as an alderman of Soufriere been sprung at that moment upon the as- 
semblage I should have been chosen to that office by acclamation, with- 
out the necessity of primary, convention, or more formal election. 
Standing under the trees, evidently too lazy to run or walk away, 
were a number of sorry nags, drowsily enjoying the shade and the sea- 
breeze, as well as an occasional breaker that rushed up the strand to 
cool their shoeless, cracked, wayworn hoofs. 

The Creole horses are not sightly ; they do not show the marks 
of breeding or of careful grooming ; they are folorn, contemplative, 
weary, careworn beasts, diminutive, and, not to put too fine a point 
upon it, decidedly cadaverous and loose-jointed. They are doubtless 
the degenerate descendants of a race of horses long without a " record," 
and with no ambition or ability to lower it, even had tradition be- 
queathed one to them. Nevertheless, these equine tramps — plebeians, 
if you will — can shuffle along for a great distance, daily travelling over 
the parched and dusty roads, or scrambling far over the hills between 
sunrise and sunset. All that their patient riders (and they must needs 
be very patient) have to do is to give their mounts plenty of rein and 
— time, especially the latter, for whips and spurs have no more effect 
upon the speed of these beasts than so much teamster profanity had 
upon the gait of an old-time army-mule. They have an uncomfortable 
way of stumbling while going down-hill, are indifferent on which side 
of them you mount or dismount, or, for the matter of that, over which 
end. They scrape up a great dust as they amble along ; and ascribe, if 
they can think or reason at all, any beating or spurring you may ad- 
minister to them to your hereditary spirit of cruelty to dumb animals, 
and not to any desire or necessity on your part to hasten their advance. 
Their gait is nondescript — they trot, amble, rack, gallop, walk ; in 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 263 

short, do everything but run, therefore, as may well be imagined, it is 
a combination of aggravation and soreness to mount and ride upon 
these raw-boned beasts. The Creole pony I had, on my visit to the 
Soufriere of St. Lucia, was the most remarkable animal I have ever 
bestrode. I tried to study its habits and gain a clear notion of its 
action while passing over the ground ; it seemed, from where I sat on 
its back clinging on as best I might, to trot or amble so far as its 
forelegs were concerned, while its hind-legs were apparently saunter- 
ing along with a gentle, gliding motion, reminding one of the steps of 
the deux temps waltz. 

These humble creatures are persevering, plodding, industrious, 
and business-like — if you will possess your soul in peace, keep your 
seat when they stumble, they will carry you to your journey's end, all 
in due time. 

Near the spot where we landed, a group of negroes were collected 
round two fishing-boats, newly come to shore, after a most successful 
catch during the preceding night. In each pirogue were quantities 
of gaudy-colored fish ; one specimen, in particular, attracted my atten- 
tion. Its head and tail, and along its back, was a rich purple, the 
belly and fins of deep orange. 1 asked its name, but received only 
the indefinite, unsatisfactory information from the fishermen, in 
chorus : 

" Its a kinder bright fish, massa." I afterward knew it to be the 
fish called the parrot. 

There were mullet and red snapper, grooper and flying-fish, all as 
gorgeous as the flowers and gay-colored leaves everywhere to be seen 
in the forests. Along the beach were crowds of negroes, but few of 
them were engaged in any work. They lolled about on the sand, 
squatting in the shade in picturesque groups, chatting, laughing, 
meantime slyly watching us, wondering, no doubt, what we outland- 
ish people could find that was quaint or extraordinary in their appear- 
ance. No place is more beautiful in all the Caribbees than this beach 
in front of Soufriere, St. Lucia. There one can stand in the deep, 



264 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

cool shade of grand trees to watch the glowing sea, and hear the rus- 
tling of the breeze in the tree-tops answer the splashing of the waves 
on the sand in a dreamy, lulling whisper that seems to coax one 
into forgetting that ever, in any place, could there be storm and 
troubled waters. The town of Soufriere, with a population of one 
thousand two hundred or one thousand five hundred souls, is an ex- 
ceedingly quaint, theatrical-looking village. There is an unreal, 
stagy aspect to all its purlieus and surrounding scenery. It seemed 
to me like the scene for the enactment of a romantic drama — I do not 
know if it would strike other people so ; that, however, was the im- 
pression it made on my mind, and as I walked about its streets I felt 
as if I were one of the chorus in "Zampa," or a supernumerary in a 
grand spectacle representing Fairyland-by-the-Sea, and was tempted 
from corner to corner, up and down sketchy streets, glimpsing all 
kinds of bits, that aroused the undeveloped artist within me, as I 
peeped down odd lanes, narrow, crooked, choked with wonderful 
weeds and gorgeous flowers. 

From the town a road ascends the hills winding round the face of 
the cliffs, until the great Pitons are insight, and thence turning in- 
land, ascends the steeps a mile or more and finally arrives at the verge 
of the crater of La Soufriere, the sulphur mountain. Up this road 
we climbed, some on foot, some mounted on Creole ponies, some on 
asses. A motley crowd were we, and jovial. When we came to a turn 
in the road from which the Pitons were visible, we halted to admire 
the magnificence of the view and breathe the invigorating trade-wind, 
which swept through the cleft between them and the inland peaks. 
Across a beautiful bay, a mile in width, the Lesser Piton rose from 
the water ; symmetrical, magnificent, towering three thousand feet in 
the air, a perfect sugar-loaf in form, warranting that description of it 
more perfectly than any mountain I have ever looked upon. Beyond 
it, partially concealed by this northernmost Pillar of Hercules, the 
Grand Piton )^ >s from the sea to a greater height. The Lesser 
Piton is, or „vppears to be, twice the height of its base-line ; so boldly 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 265 

does it rear itself aloft, and we could readily well believe that the foot 
of man had never been, nor is ever likely to be, set upon its mar- 
vellous pinnacle. The sight of its immensity is bewildering, its iso- 
lation from other hills magnifies it inconceivably, the stupendous mass 
of it overpowers the imagination. While you gaze at its summit in- 
tently, as the clouds rapidly drift just above the dizziest height, the 
monstrous rock seems to be toppling over into the sea and about to fall 
in maddening confusion to fill unfathomable depths with a world 
of ruin. Grand as is this sight of the Pitons, the view of them we 
had later in the day surpasses it as the grandeur of a storm at sea, 
when witnessed from the land, is surpassed by the nearer view of 
the war of waters from the deck of a tossing ship. 

Continuing on our way, our road led us inland, across cane-pieces 
through plantations, then, entering a valley, twined along the hill-side 
high above a stream which came tumbling down from the witch's 
cauldron we were on our way to see. After a rough ride we came to 
the verge of a yawning gulf, a mile or more in circumference, whose 
sides rose perpendicularly ; in fact, almost overhung the dismal 
abyss, at the bottom of which, two or three hundred feet below us, 
we could see many springs boiling amid rocks that looked like the 
ruins of ancient lime-kilns. Issuing from these pits were clouds of 
fetid steam, noisome exhalations, causing the destruction of vegetation 
near the pits, and blackening the rocks on which it condensed. It was 
a most uncanny sort of place, desolate, infernal in aspect, and to the 
leeward of this Avernus the grass and blighted vegetation for a long 
distance all around were discolored and stained, which gave them the 
appearance of lying continually under the shadow of a dense cloud ; a 
stench issued from the depths, and fumes of sulphur infected the air. 
Near it trees there were none, and the stream that ran from it was 
inky black, even the birds shunned the neighborhood, and yet, down 
in the bottom of it we beheld the cabins of negroes, who no doubt 
had propitiated the hobgoblins, the brats of old Jumbie himself, 
who are said to infest this antechamber of a chapel of Beelzebub. 



266 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



The bottom of this crater is about one thousand feet above the sea, 
and entrance to it is only to be gained by ascending the banks of the 
stream that flows from it through a narrow gorge, or by descending a 
steep circuitous path leading downward on its seaward side. We did 
not care to explore the nethermost pitfall, and so, after hovering about 
its margin for a time, like shuddering ghosts upon the dismal shore 
of Acheron, we retraced our steps to town, where we arrived consider- 
ably shaken by our ride, uncomfortably hot, but congratulating our- 




Return from Soufriere. 

selves that we had performed our duty as sight-seers who were deter- 
mined to leave no natural curiosity in any of the Caribbees unvisited, 
providing time served to reach them. Once upon a time these sulphur 
springs were much resorted to by invalids who had faith in the heal- 
ing properties of the water ; at present they are not used, except by 
a few inhabitants of the island. 

After resting a while at a little inn near the parish church we 
went on board the Barracouta and anchor being promptly weighed, we 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 267 

steamed slowly southward, towing a number of lighters alongside, which 
were to be employed in bringing sugar from several places where nu- 
merous hogsheads were waiting for us. 

These lighters, or pirogues, as they are called, are modelled as the 
Caribs modelled their war-canoes, in which they made remarkable 
voyages, in days long gone by, carrying destruction far and wide, until 
the mere mention of their name struck terror to the hearts of the less 
venturesome natives of all the northern islands of the Caribbean Sea. 
Most of the craft that we saw had been hollowed by fire and axe out 
of the trunks of mighty trees ; they were, in short, enormous dugouts, 
similar in shape to those one constantly sees in the backwoods of 
North America, built up all round with bulwarks of stout planks, 
which rise a foot or more above the sides of the natural wood and 
were braced at intervals on the inside, and otherwise strengthened to 
resist the dashing of the waves. Sometimes a clumsy mast, upon 
which an ill-fitting sail is set, is stepped in the bow of the pirogue. 
It is surprising with what speed the poorly equipped craft get over 
the water ; they are shallow, with hardly any keel, and sag to leeward 
like cat-boats with their centre-boards raised. In such loose- join ted 
craft as these, however, the reckless fishermen of the island venture 
far from land, and fearlessly sail from one island to the other — some- 
times passing several days at sea. 

"We dropped anchor again off a small village called Malgre-tous, 
almost at the foot of the Lesser Piton. The lighters were sent ashore 
and returned, each bringing off several hogsheads of sugar. "When all 
the cargo was on board we rounded the base of the Piton, entering a bay 
extending inward between the two gigantic sugar-loaf mountains. On 
either hand, as we steamed slowly into the gulf, which is about one and 
a half miles wide, the Pitons stand like the pillars of a great gateway, 
the hills between them sink backward in a vast amphitheatre almost 
circular in form, and a perfect crescent of white sand divides the sea 
from thickets of shrubs and manchineel trees that fringe the foothills. 

Higher up a savannah of cane-pieces occupies all the middle slope. 



268 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



As far up the hill-sides as the soil can by any means be cultivated, 
there are plantations ; then the forests clothe all the steeps, and vast 
mountains rise in the background. On the left hand, as one looks 
into the bay, midway up the ascent, between the sea and the forest, 
is a planter's house — and near it are the sugar-houses and other out- 
buildings, partly hidden by foliage. Before this dwelling a smooth 
lawn spreads its rich greensward down almost to the margin of the 
sea. On the right hand, at the edge of the forest, is a quaint and 
picturesque collection of bamboo huts, thatched with dried leaves 




A Planter's House. 



of sugar-cane and plantain, reminding me of the pictures of African 
villages to be seen in the illustrated editions of books of travel. As 
our ship la}' in the peaceful harbor, midway between the Pitons, upon 
looking landward, the illusion came in upon the mind that we were 
looking from the stage into the auditorium of a titanic theatre. From 
the mountain-peaks on either side, high overhead, the sky hung like 
the vault of a proscenium arch ; before us the embrace of the Colos- 
seum swept in a mighty concave, the terraces rising, one above the 
other, up to the crowning parapet of serried crags and pinnacles. 



ASHORE AT ST. LUCIA. 269 

A stop of less than an hour sufficed to stow away our cargo ; then 
once more we held on southward, coasting around the foot of the Grand 
Piton, and came to a small harbor known by the ill-sounding name of 
Drunkard's Bay, so called because a tipsy captain and his befuddled 
crew ran their ship against the face of the towering cliffs and sank her. 
Down among the dead men almost instantaneously went she, to the 
bottom of the waters that meet and flow, hundreds of fathoms deep, at 
the foot of the Grand Piton. 

Opposite to where we waited for the lighters to make their double 
journey, shoreward and back, high above the sea, was another Afri- 
can village such as I have already described. We could see the foot- 
path that led up to it, winding up the steep ascent, and from time to 
time descried the villagers passing and repassing on their way from 
the plantations below to their little hamlet on the cliffs. The boat's 
crew from Soufriere experienced more difficulty in pulling from the 
ship to the shore and back again than at our other stopping-places ; 
for, when we had passed the base of the Grand Piton, at the south- 
western extremity of the island, the ship ran out from the lee of the 
land, where the sea was disturbed by the full force of the trade-wind, 
which at this time of the day blows more strongly than at any other. 
I doubt if the most skilful crew of Canadian boatmen, or fishermen of 
our own coast, could have succeeded in reaching the shore with one of 
the empty pirogues. I am certain they could not have made the trip 
from the shore to the ship with a cargo of hogsheads which sank the 
rickety craft until they took water over the gunwales fore and aft. 

With skill and precision the pirogues were managed, and manfully 
did their crews labor at the heavy sweeps, so that in a surprisingly 
short time we had stowed away all the sugar that was ready to be 
shipped. Then, once more taking our attendant fleet in tow, we 
started northward along the coast until we came to Soufriere Bay, at 
which place we parted company with the boatmen, who must have 
been utterly exhausted by their long day's labor. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MONTSERRAT. 



To Montserrat via Sundry other Islands. — Irish Darkies. — General Description. — 
Plymouth. — The Swarm of Beggars. — "Glad I'se alibe, sah. " — A Heartless Flir- 
tation. — The Author's Experience with an Unknown Fruit. 



ROCEEDING on our journey, we set sail 
from St. Pierre, Martinique, for the island 
of Antigua. Next morning we were sail- 
ing along the west coast of Guadeloupe, 
having passed Dominica in the night and 
the Saints after sunrise. 

We held our course far out from the 
coast of Guadeloupe, the largest of all the Caribbees, 
except Trinidad, and were therefore unable to form 
any satisfactory idea of the island. For hours we 
coasted along it, enjoying a sweeping view of its shore, 
wondering at the height of its peaks, of which La Sou- 
friere is grandest — being nearly, if not quite, as tall as Mount Diablo- 
tin in Dominica. Late in the day we passed the northern limit of 
Guadeloupe, and having altered our course passed between it and the 
southern headlands of Montserrat, and so continuing on, as night 
advanced and through the night, at sunrise we were once more 
anchored in the outer harbor of St. John's, Antigua. Here we re- 
mained for two days, the first being the Sabbath, wherein no manner 
of work was done ; the second day was occupied in taking on board a 
quantity of sugar. We went ashore both days, and on both days 




MONTSEBEAT. 271 

were visited on board the ship by friends who had entertained us 
during our recent visit to the island. We also renewed our acquaint- 
ance with pineapples and green-turtle, for the quality of both of 
which Antigua takes precedence of all the other islands it was our 
fortune to visit during our cruise. 

At nightfall, two days after our arrival, we started once more, tak- 
ing a southwesterly course, and at sunrise the next morning arrived 
under the lee of Montserrat, an island famed for lime-orchards and 
the darkies who call themselves, the Saints preserve us .'! by Irish 
names, speaking, it is said, a jargon in which, there lurks a flavor of 
the brogue. I must confess, however, in this latter respect I was dis- 
appointed, being unable to detect it, although the people lack not in 
other characteristics of the folk of the Emerald Isle— notably a certain 
honeyed essence of the blarney-stone, that is particularly noticeable 
when offering their wares or when approaching us in mock humility 
to beg a sixpence. Montserrat is in 16° 42' north latitude, 62° 13' 
west longitude, is nine miles in length, six in width from east to west, 
and contains about thirty-five square miles according to one authority, 
or thirty thousand acres according to another, of which ten or twelve 
thousand acres are said to be under cultivation. The island lies 
twenty-six miles southwest of Antigua, forty miles northwest of 
Guadeloupe, thirty miles southeast of Nevis. Eedonda stands in the 
sea between it and the latter island, but nearer by a number of miles 
to Montserrat. The surface of Montserrat is very rugged, and the soil 
is not of great fertility ; its windward side is bold, of a wild and bar- 
ren aspect, while the leeward shore slopes gently to the sea, being laid 
out in many plantations of cane and lime-orchards. The highest peak, 
La Soufriere, at the south end of Montserrat, is over three thousand 
feet in height ; Centre Hill rises two thousand four hundred and fifty 
feet in the heart of the colony ; and Silver Hill, in the north, towers 
nearly one thousand three hundred feet above the sea. 

The climate of Montserrat is considered very healthy, the island, 
as one is informed on every hand, being often called the Montpellier 



272 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

of the West Indies. The daily average temperature is 80°, and the 
range of the thermometer for the year from 72° to 85° Fahrenheit, 
but the heat is never oppressive, even in the summer months. The 
annual rainfall is about eighty inches. Montserrat is rarely visited by 
hurricanes, being in this respect as fortunate as Martinique. It is of 
volcanic formation, and the rock upon which it is founded is rich in 
iron and sulphur. In those parts susceptible of cultivation the soil 
is rich, producing any kind of crop grown in the Windward Islands ; 
but no industries are engaged in to any extent except sugar-growing 
and the cultivation of limes. 

In 1870 the population was under nine thousand ; now it is esti- 
mated to be considerably over eleven thousand. 

The affairs of Montserrat, which forms part of the colony of the 
Leeward Islands, are administered by a president, who also acts as 
treasurer, district magistrate, and commissioner of the supreme court. 
The total exports from the island amount to £32,000, more than 
half of which goes to other countries than Great Britain and her 
colonies — principally to the United States. The imports are £25,000, 
mostly from the United Kingdom and Canada. 

Montserrat was discovered by Columbus, on Sunday, November 
10th, in the year 1493. The admiral gave it this name because he 
fancied it bore a resemblance to a mountain in Spain, on which is situ- 
ated the monastery where, twenty-nine years after the discovery of 
the Caribbees, Ignatius Loyola hung up his arms, no longer needed 
since his wounding at Pampeluna, and from which retreat he set out 
on his pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land. 

The island was originally settled by " wild Irish," as was also An- 
guilla ; it became a British colony in 1632, was twice captured by the 
French, first in 1664, when it remained in their possession four years, 
and again in 1782 ; two years later it was finally restored to England. 

The principal town of Montserrat is Plymouth, situated on the 
southwest side of the island. Before this capital the Barracouta cast 
anchor about nine o'clock in the morning of as lovely a day as ever 




"PENNY FO' DE BABY, PLEASE." 



MONTSERRAT. 273 

smiled upon a beautiful landscape. Having gone ashore in the cutter, 
I landed with other passengers at a small wooden pier projecting a 
Hundred feet or so from the beach in front of the centre of the town, 
and w T alked shoreward, closely examined by and examining the people 
I met, until I finally came to the Water Street, the Strand of this 
seaport. 

On your right hand as you enter the town is a small fortifica- 
tion, which doubtless served its purpose by preventing the landing of 
smugglers and other lawless characters who infested these islands in 
times gone by ; now crumbling to ruins, it adds, in no inconsiderable 
degree, to the picturesque appearance of the approach to Plymouth 
from the sea. Before we had entered the town-limits we were beset 
by a swarm of the most persistent, tireless, but withal good-natured 
and apparently light-hearted beggars we had ever fallen among. 
There were young, middle-aged, and old beggars, male and female, 
black, brown, and yellow, some in rags and some in tags, but none in 
velvet gowns ; nevertheless, in very truth the dogs of the vicinity had 
much need to bark, for the beggars had not only come to town, they 
had come to stay ; they possessed and infested the place, were at 
home in it and at their ease, and were not to be driven out, warned 
off, moved on, run in, exorcised, laid, or charmed away. They gab- 
bled like parrots, tormented you like mosquitoes, swarmed about you 
as the birds of the air swarmed about the three white baskets on the 
head of the chief baker unto Pharaoh. 

" Beg you a penny, sixpence, massa." " Beg you a penny." " I'm 
de one dat saw, spoke to, pointed at, touched you (as the case may 
have been) first." "I see you come from the ship, dear massa." 
" Beg you a penny." " I'se old, or young, has a baby, loss me husban', 
is sick, was sick, can't work, cut me han', is hungry." " Give me a 
penny to buy bread— to give to me mudder — for the chil'en — for me 
own se'f, for charity, for the lub of Heaben " — for any reason, for all 
reasons, for no reason. "Beg you a penny — just one." "Look at 
me ! pity me," and so on, up and down the gamut, from A to Izzard, 
18 



274 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

in solo, duet, in chorus, crescendo, diminuendo, staccato, fortissimo, 
pianissimo, and always and at all times very much the reverse of non 
tropjpo. One is soon driven to the end of one's wits, bewildered, 
maddened, at one time longing to have the whole host arrested on 
a charge of mendicancy and obstructing the public thoroughfares, or 
interfering with the wheels of commerce. Then, in despair at the 
idea of drawing an indictment against the majority of the population 
of an apparently thriving and civilized town, one frowns, gesticulates, 
but all to no purpose. The Salmagundian, who accompanied me, 
threatened one lusty beggar with, I know not what, dire and dreadful 
punishment if his demands for alms were continued. Immediately 
the offender thus singled out was beset by a fellow-tramp, who or- 
dered him to be off and about his (entirely imaginary) business. 

" Get away from da ; don' you hear the gentleman a-taaken to 
yo' ? Go away, now ; he bodder to deaf wi' yo'." 

Then, as if conscious that he had merited well of my companion, to 
whose aid he had come all uninvited, this second " black son of thun- 
der," for so the Salmagundian called his latest foe, at once, in a man- 
ner calculated to take away one's breath, besought the privilege of 
" begging a dime." This was too much, even for the best-natured of 
men. 

The artist lunged wildly all around him, but especially in the direc- 
tion of tramp No. 2 ; rather, it must be said, in the manner of a man 
fighting a blue-bottle or a bumblebee, or as one who, with equal prac- 
tical result, beateth the air, than in the style of an expert in the so- 
called manly art, and all to no purpose, although the Salmagundian 
had it in his heart to slay seven at a blow, like the valiant tailor of 
the fairy tale. The offender, however, fell back, to judge by his looks, 
more in sorrow than in anger, and, going aside, leaned over the rail 
of the wharf and gazed sadly out to sea. Some time afterward, when 
we happened to pass near him, as he still looked sadly seaward, while 
whistling a plaintive tune, the Salmagundian called bravely to him : 
" Why are you whistling, my man ? " In the twinkling of an eye 



MONTSERRAT. 



275 



came the answer, like the lightning-thrust of a rapier under the fifth 
rib: 

" When I see you, massa, I mus' whistle ; I'se so glad I'm alibe, 
sah ! " 

Then it was the artist's turn to gaze sadly out to sea, but the rest 
of the party seemed to enjoy themselves heartily. 

I have elsewhere spoken of the quantities of fruit wherewith the 
Barracoutans were wont to regale themselves at all seasons when 
opportunity offered ; indeed, for that matter, when there was appar- 
ently no opportunity we went out of our way to make one. 




Scramble for a Copper. 



No matter what the time of day or night, whether before meals 
or afterward, we purchased fruit, begged it of the ship's steward, bor- 
rowed it of one another, and I confess, at this distance of time and 
from the owners of the stolen goods, that when ashore some of our 
company, as they passed orchards or plantations, helped themselves 
without due regard being paid to the fact whether the fruit were 
grown on private property or along the public margin of the queen's 
high-way. Refusing to experiment with nothing in the shape of 
fruit, we tasted and tried for ourselves all that came in our way, could 
be reached, or acquired by purchase or begging. This recklessness in 



276 



DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 



the matter of assimilating fruit cost me dear on one memorable oc- 
casion, as I shall now relate ; for as my 
somewhat remote ancestor Adam fell 
a willing victim to the beguilement 
of Eve, so did I, being tempted of 
woman, yield to my curiosity and in- 
ordinate desire to taste a fruit that 
was pleasant to the sight and ap- 
peared to be good for food. 

Reader, it fell out in this fashion. 
I had possessed myself of the en- 
tire stock-in-trade of a sprightly, lo- 
quacious damsel of Montserrat, who 
greeted me with charming frankness 
as I stood on the wharf waiting for 
the ship's boat to take me off to the 
Barracouta, then about to sail. The 
temptress was neatly dressed in a 
scrupulously clean, well-fitting gown 
of gay-colored cotton stuff. On her 
head was poised a tin bucket contain- 
ing a fruit to me unknown. Some 
were of rich golden yellow, some brill- 
iant red — all about the size of large 
pears and of the same shape. She 
was a most picturesque and shapely 
person, and I could not forbear pay- 
ing her the homage of frequent re- 
spectful and admiring glances. She 
carried herself erect and moved with 
the grace of an actress of the Theatre 
Francaise, and was engaged in a most 

pronounced and heartless flirtation with one of the Barracouta's boat- 




The Seller of Cashews. 



MONTSERBAT. 277 

men, whose acquaintance she had made that morning, and who was 
performing for her delectation a weird and agile dance, with woven 
paces and with waving arms, shuffling his feet upon the rough tim- 
bers of the wharf in such utter disregard of splinters and badly 
driven nails as would have made the performance a dangerous one 
for any unshod white man to indulge in. In utter recklessness he 
rivalled one of the clan McTavish absorbed in the performance of a 
sword-dance, winding up by bringing the liberal dimensions of the 
sole of his foot down with a bang that would have reminded a St. 
Louis editor of the foot-fall of a Chicago girl. The young lady, evi- 
dently deeply impressed with the sincere admiration with which she 
had inspired her latest victim, informed him, when he had made an 
end, that she would "just ask de capt'n when he come asho' if you 
is a workin'-man sure of a job an' kin s'port a wife." Then, lowering 
her basket of fruit from her head, she approached me to make offer 
of her wares. 

"Please buy, my good massa; give me two shillin' for all dem — I 
pick 'em myself. Give me two small shillin' — two small shillin', dear 
massa, an' I'll buy a handkerchief and keep it for your sake." 

I must confess I most ungallantly, faute de mieux, demurred at 
the price. 

" Oh ! bless you, no, dear massa ; two shillin', just small ones — you 
would love to give me three shillin' ; and I will buy a handkerchief and 
keep it for my dear massa. I will — true ! an' show it to you when 
you come back." 

I murmured, helplessly, something about not being able to carry 
the fruit on board. 

" I send dis man to carry dem," indicating her dancing boatman. 
" He go wid you. Do take dem, please ; I be so dis'p'inted if you 
don', and I give you my nice pail ; I wouldn't like you to refuse." 

What could I do ? ' Obviously nothing, except to pay her two shil- 
lings, two " small shillings ; " a fair enough bargain, seeing that her 
boatman was included in the purchase. 



278 DOWN TEE ISLANDS. 

Reader, I thus became the possessor of half a bushel of cashew- 
fruit, and inherited an attending train of distressing circumstances 
that has perfectly cured me forever of acting as a sampler of strange 
fruits, even were I to receive the same from the fair hands of Mother 
Eve herself, instead of from a queen-like West Indian fruit-seller, 
whose graceful walk proclaimed a goddess, as black and shining as 
my patent-leather boots. 

The dancing boatman took the fruit on board the Barracouta, and, 
in the presence of a crowd of my curious fellow-passengers, my troub- 
les began. 

The cashew, as I have said, is like a pear in shape ; a quince would 
describe it better. On the bottom of it there grows a nut, the size, 
shape, and color of a kidney-bean. The pulp of the fruit is yellow 
in color, like that of a greengage, and exceedingly juicy. The taste 
of it is gratefully acid, good to quench thirst, and, as I afterward 
learned from an ancient book found in the library of a West Indian 
friend, " good for the stomach, as also in swoonings and faintings." 
" The Caribs make an intoxicating drink of it, but if it fall on any 
linen it makes a red stain therein, which continues till such time as 
the tree brings forth new flowers." Another chronicler of the quali- 
ties of the wondrous fruit asserts that in the stains " are bred divers 
worms that may not be destroyed although the linen be buried in the 
earth." After I had finished my experiment, several of my pocket- 
handkerchiefs looked as if they had been used during a prolonged and 
dangerous surgical operation. I have, however, watched in vain for 
the appearance of " divers worms," so that part of the statement may 
be taken cum grano. Of one thing I am " jolly well certain," as an 
English passenger on the Barracouta asserted, had I known what 
direful consequences were to follow my eating the brown nut of the 
cashew, I should for days have been a happier if not a wiser man ; for, 
not content with swallowing the fruit, which is delicious and whole- 
some, I must needs bite into one of the nuts. I bit but once, barety 
piercing its tough, chestnut-like shell. What the consequences were 



MONTSEBBAT. 279 

my readers may faintly imagine, if I again quote from the ancient 
botanist : " Ye nut yields a caustic oyl which, taken sparingly, warms 
and extremely fortifies the stomach — it is successfully used to mollify, 
nay, to eat away corns and the callousness of the feet." For several 
days, during which the skin came off my lips, tongue, gums, and the 
roof of my mouth, my favorite food was cracked ice, and it was pleas- 
ant to sit in the shade and allow the fresh, bracing trade-wind to blow 
down my throat. 

I do not wonder that the Caribs made their war-canoes out of the 
trunk of the cashew-tree, that teredoes, or ship-worms, even when 
driven to desperation by the pangs of hunger, refuse to eat any part of 
it, and that " vermin will not be able to harm clothes if they be kept 
in a chest made of the wood." 

In his " Natural History of Nevis " the Rev. William Cambridge 
Smith makes the following extraordinary statement, to wit : " When 
our West Indian young Ladies fancy themselves too much tanned 
with the scorching Rays of the Sun, they gently scrape off the thin 
outside Skin of the Stone, and then rub their Faces all over with the 
Stone. Their Faces do immediately swell, grow black, and the Skin 
thus poisoned will, in five or six Days come entirely off the Face in 
large Fleaks, so that they cannot appear in Publicke under a full Fort- 
night by which time their new Skin looks as fair as the Skin of a 
young Child." What fair penitent made confession of this secret of 
her boudoir to the reverend historian ? His statement is given for 
what it ought to be worth ; but as it is founded on the word of one, 
and only one, professional beauty of his flock, the only " Lady who 
owned that she herself had tried it and had found the whole Opera- 
tion exceedingly painful," we may give the benefit of the doubt to the 
fair sex of 1745, the year Mr. Smith's book was published, and dismiss 
the statement as unworthy of belief. And yet, in the words of the 
somewhat credulous parson, "Alas ! what will not Pride" (with a big 
P) " attempt." As there is no poison without its antidote, the effect of 
the caustic, blistering oil of the cashew is, to a great degree, counter- 



280 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



acted, if not entirely neutralized, by the use of a strong solution of bi- 
carbonate of soda. 

While I was experimenting with these apples of Sodom the Bar- 
racouta had weighed anchor and steamed to the north end of Mont- 
serrat, on her journey to the island of Nevis. 




A Pirogue. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



NEVIS. 



St. Mary-the-Round. — Nevis. — Its Geography and General Appearance. — Charlestown, 
its Capital. — Its Hot Springs. — An Ancient Hotel and Ancient Guardian. — Lord 
Nelson's Marriage in Nevis. — Alexander Hamilton. 

Between Montserrat and I^evis, ten miles from the former and 
eighteen miles southeast from the latter, there rises, six hundred 
feet from the sea, a rock, barren of trees, but beautified by mosses, 
lichens, parasitic plants, and vines that cling in the crevices and scars 
on its precipitous sides or planted on narrow ledges where the sea- 
fowl build their nests. This 
rock can be seen for more 
than thirty miles from the 
deck of a ship. Like Dia- 
mond Bock near Marti- 
nique, and Ship Rock be- 
tween St. Thomas and 
Santa Cruz, its sides are 
precipitous ; the water all 
around is exceedingly deep 
— only on the west side of it is there an anchorage, in ten or twelve 
fathoms. To the south, close to it, a small islet shows above the sea ; 
well named, in consideration of its shape, The Pinnacle. Redona is 
uninhabited, except from time : to time by people from the neighbor- 
ing islands, who visit it for the purpose of procuring sea-birds' eggs, 
and who win their way to the top by means of a wire rope one end of 




Sail Rock. 



282 



DOWN THE ISLANDS. 



which is fastened aloft. Santa Maria de la Redonda (St. Mary-the- 
Round) was named by Columbus the same day he discovered An- 
tigua and the other islands lying in full sight of the sea-girt crag. 
To give us a view of it nearer at hand, the Barracouta turned some- 
what easterly out of her straight course to Nevis and we sailed close 
to the western rampart of Redonda, thus affording an impressive 
sight of its vast proportions and everlasting walls. 




Redonda. 



In the glorious light of mid-afternoon the great dome at times put 
on a sheen of bronze and silver, at times the whole compass of it ap- 
peared to glisten like amethyst and ' ; sea-green colour'd beryl," then, 
as we sailed away from it, a haze enwrapped it in a robe of azure 
beset with jewels; as it took the form and likeness of a sunset cloud 
when night came on, the great globe itself dissolved like an unsub- 
stantial pageant, faded, leaving not a rack behind. 



NEVIS. 283 

Early in the evening we anchored in the roadstead in front of 
Charlestown, the capital and chief seaport of Nevis. 

At sunrise the next morning our vessel lay about half a mile from 
shore, and the island showed, in all its grandeur, a wonderful mountain, 
3,200 feet or, according to some, 3,596 feet in height, rising majesti- 
cally into the heavens — fortunately for us, clear of clouds and mists — 
towering away into the blue sky. 

Nevis is nearly circular in form, containing about 32,000 acres, says 
the author of "Her Majesty's Colonies," 24,640 acres being given as 
correct by the compiler of the "West Indies Directory ; of these, 16,- 
000 according to the first, and 6,000 according to the latter, authority 
are capable of being cultivated. I incline to accept the figures given 
in the first-named work; they are taken from the useful and well- 
arranged Almanac of the Leeward Islands, compiled by the editor of 
the Dominican, a journal published in Roseau, the capital of Domin- 
ica. I give the two estimates to illustrate, what I have before pointed 
out, how difficult it is to get accurate information concerning the 
Windward Islands, even from sources that might well be supposed to 
be authoritative and accurate. 

I have seen it stated that in the beginning of this century there 
were over four thousand whites resident in this colony ; now there 
are comparatively few families of them left. Once upon a time the 
total population of the island was not far from twenty thousand 
— it is now under twelve thousand, including, perhaps, three or four 
hundred coolies. Formerly, Nevis had a government separate from 
St. Kitt's ; at present it is joined politically to that island, and sends 
two members to the joint council. 

Charlestown lies upon the margin of an extensive bay at the foot 
of the mountain. There are in it a court-house and other public build- 
ings ; it is a sleepy, silent place, where little business is transacted, 
and many of the buildings remain locked from day to day ; the town 
is emptied of its folk on week-days as well as on Sabbaths and high- 
davs. 



284 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

A party of gentlemen landed from the Barracouta and set out for 
a short walk of less than half a mile to the Hot Spring of Nevis, 
so celebrated in times past. Presently we came to where a brook 
crossed the main road, and just beyond it a lane led us a few paces 
into a thicket of trees and shrubbery. The land falls northward to 
the edge of the burn we had crossed ; a girdle of brushwood, a hedge 
of prickly-pear and aloes, overgrown with jasmine- vines, encloses a 
forsaken garden, " Where the weeds grow green from the graves of 
its roses." The lane is choked and stifled by a tangle of vegetation, 
and within the walls of this waste place — 

" So long have the gray, bare walks lain guestless, 
Through branches and briers if a man make way, 
He shall find no life but the sea-winds, restless 

Night and day." 

On the left hand, on a bank overlooking the garden, there stands 
a massive ruin, of fair proportions ; the thick and well joined walls 
have resisted the shock of earthquakes, but the roof has fallen, save in 
places where it has been clumsily propped up to delay, for a few years, 
its ultimate destruction. On the tops of the masonry, in chinks and 
crevices, and on the window-sills are air-plants ; here and there the 
stones are colored by bright mosses and lichens, and the whole pile 
has a venerable, weather-beaten appearance which is most picturesque 
and legend-inspiring. 

It is the ruin of an ancient hostlery, built nearly a century ago. 
To this grand establishment used to resort a gay company of pleasure- 
seekers, and such as desired to make trial of the healing waters 
which boil up in the midst of the garden. Long ago Nevis was 
the Bath, the Buxton, of the Caribbees, and to it annually came the 
youth and beauty, crabbed and gouty old age, the valetudinarians of 
the "West Indian fashionable world. In those days sugar was king ; 
his courtiers, the planters, derived the income of nabobs from innumer- 
able grand estates. Nevis was also one of the principal slave-markets 



NEVI8. 285 

of the Windward Islands; consequently, in the days before steam- 
power, emancipation, and, greatest leveller of all, beetroot-sugar, there 
were abundant wealth, luxury, and a high degree of magnificence- at 
the court of King Sugar, whose summer-palace the old ruin used to 
be. Here there were laughing and music, and pomp and splendor — 
here came Dives and his sons and daughters, eligible young gentle- 
men and sweet damsels with sugary expectations — here there were 
dancing, and flirting, and love-making, and, what was more to the 
purpose, match-making ; young folks went away one season engaged, 
to return the next on their wedding-trips. Here was enacted the 
fashionable comedy which in England is played, summer after sum- 
mer, at Bath, Tunbridge Wells, and other spas. I like to indulge 
the fancy that, all in due time, to this resort came the Swartzes from 
St. Kitt's. Reader, do you recall the name ? You surely must remem- 
ber Miss Swartz, the rich, woolly-haired heiress from St. Kitt's, who, 
on the day Miss Amelia Sedley left the establishment, of which Miss 
Barbara Pinkerton, in a letter dated " The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 
18 — ," informs us that it " had been honoured by the presence of The 
Great Lexicographer and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone, 
" was in such a passion of tears, they were obliged to send for Dr. 
Floss, and half tipsify her " (the heiress aforesaid) " with sal volatile." 
Of course you remember the heiress of St. Kitt's, " who paid double," 
and was therefore permitted, on the occasion of her schoolmate's de- 
parture, to indulge in such luxury of grief as was only allowed to 
parlor boarders at the establishment in question. You remember her. 
Well, when I wandered over the old hotel in Nevis and rambled 
about the paths of the forsaken garden, I could not, for the life of me, 
help wondering how long after the departure of Miss Amelia (dear 
Amelia, I had almost called her, for I always despised George Osborne, 
no less than 1 ultimately came to envy William Dobbin) — I say, I won- 
dered how long (after the day Miss Becky Sharp actually flung the 
copy of Johnson's "Dixonary," presented to that young person by 
Miss Pinkerton, back into Miss Pinkerton's gardens) before Miss 



286 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

Swartz, having realized, in the matter of embroidery, geography, 
black-board, and deportment, the fondest wishes of all her rich rela- 
tives in the Caribbees, returned to the sugar-estate of her family in 
St. Kitt's. Doubtless when, "endowed with every accomplishment so 
requisite for a young lady of fashion," she finally rejoined her opulent 
family — doubtless, I say, she was carried off by proud papa and match- 
making mamma, the very next season, to Nevis. There, tender-hearted 
creature that she was, Miss Swartz fell obediently in love with the 
young man of her parents' choice. There with him she wandered up 
and down the shaded paths, listening to the cooing of the wood-pigeons, 
and vowed, by the constant light of the Southern Cross, to be true 
to him forever ; there she enjoyed the odor of orange-blossoms, that 
sweetiy prophesied her wedded happiness, and wore flowers of dainty 
jasmine in her hair or nearer her heart — while her gallant from Bar- 
bados, or, may be, from Trinidad, a fine young man, made verses to 
her eyes or raven hair, after the manner of eligible suitors of a gen- 
eration or two ago. All this did she, while papa played whist with 
the governor, or the general in command of His Majesty's forces, or 
the admiral, or a stray nobleman from the old country ; mamma, 
meanwhile, gossiping with the elegant dames, who congratulated her 
upon her daughter's happiness, wondering in their hearts, never- 
theless, what young Sugarly " could see in that Swartz girl to ad- 
mire." 

In old times, in its palmy days, Nevis was the rendezvous of the 
English squadrons and the headquarters, during certain seasons, of 
the general in command of the British army in that part of the world. 
Officers' wives resided there, in order to be near their husbands, and in 
this way there was added to the company frequenting the spa a goodly 
host of fair ladies and well-born dames — what wonder, then, that the 
hotel was very grand, spacious, and well built, containing all the then 
modern conveniences, and was, moreover, the centre of fashion, the 
court of his mightiness, King Sugar. The hotel, squarely and solidly 
built, two hundred feet in length by one hundred in width, was sev- 



NEVIS. 287 

eral stories high, and was surrounded, on each floor, by verandas upon 
which gave wide windows. The ceilings were more than twenty feet 
in height, and the chambers approached grandeur in proportions ; a 
wide hall opened through the middle of it, and flights of easy stairs led 
from story to story. The glory of it has departed — its verandas have 
fallen, its windows and casements have long since been used as fire- 
wood, the stairs are broken, the roof admits the rain in many an open- 
ing chink. It is a picture of desolation and decay — one's footsteps 
echo dismally through the empty habitations ; it certainly is the abode 
of bats and owls — and may be suspected, even by the most prosaic 
imagination, of being the resort of ghosts. We clambered up to its 
back door, and were startled by the apparition of a very ancient col- 
ored man, as grizzly as Charon, as wrinkled as Father Time himself ; 
for a moment our imagination ran away with us and we expected him 
to vanish from our sight — and should not have been surprised had he 
wrung his hands in ghostly despair as he disappeared into the gloomy 
ruins. It was no spirit, however, but a colored man of flesh and 
blood. He awaited our approach, bowing impressively, but so stiffly, 
so painfully, that we almost expected to hear him creak and crackle 
like old parchment, and felt relieved when we saw him stand erect 
again. He spoke to us in a voice that sounded like an echo of the 
years by -gone : 

" Good-marnin', gentlemen, good-marnin' ! Walk inside — glad to 
see you — come in, look at de old place — look out for de flo' — de beams 
is strong, but some of de bo'rds is rather old. Dey hasn't left much 
of de wood-work — dey stole de windows and de doors. Dey would 
have took de stairs an' de roof, sir — de stairs an' de roof — but some 
years pas' dey stop 'em." 

" Who stopped them ? " I asked. 

" De owner of de proppity, massa — de owner. De las' thing 
dey stole was de ceilin' of de billiard- room. Dat was de billiard- 
room," pointing to a part of the building of which there were but 
walls standing. " Der was a fine billiard-room in dose days, and de 



288 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

other buildings you see was de coach-houses, and dis is de ciste'n. 
Listen ! de flo' is holler." 

" How old is this hotel ? " I inquired. 

" It was built when I was three year old, sir." 

" How old are you ? " 

" Don't know for sure, massa ; de hotel was built in eighteen hun- 
d'ed an' sev'n. Long time, dat ! " 

" Then you must be going on eighty-one years of age," I vent- 
ured. 

" Don't know, sir ; de hotel was built when I was three year old. 
How much you make it ? " 

" Eighty-one years," I said. 

" Shouldn't wonder, massa ! can't remember when I was barn, but 
de hotel was built three year after dat. It's wonderful old." 

According to the testimony of this old man, the Grand Hotel of 
Nevis was built in that year during which were laid the foundations 
of the old City Hall in my native town, New York. 

The old janitor evidently took a great pride in pointing out all the 
parts of the hotel that, long ago, had been so grand and comfortable. 
Here was the ball-room, here the dining-hall — that old tumble-down 
out-building had been the kitchen. Down the bank in front of the 
main structure had been an Italian garden, with its rose- and flower- 
beds, its ferneries and stucco statuary. Yonder was the dry and cracked 
basin of a pond once swarming with gold-fish — near the wine-cellar 
were the ruins of a turtle-crawl — at the side door was a moss-grown 
stone block where the young ladies mounted their ponies, and gayly 
rode away. Down in the ravine through which flows the little stream, 
concealed in a thicket of tamarind- and mango-trees, was the bath- 
house, a substantial building, two stories in height — the upper floor a 
toilet-room, clean, but bare of furniture ; in the lower story was the 
hot bath — a great tank, twenty by thirty feet in size, filled with 
crystal-clear water of a temperature of about 100° Fahrenheit. 

Procuring towels from the ancient guardian, we disrobed and de- 



NEVIS. 



289 



scended into the inviting water ; and for the space of an hour or more 
enjoyed one of the greatest luxuries to be had for love or money in 
the West Indies. The water is soft and soothing in its effect — warm 
enough to cause one to set foot in it gingerly ; it is remarkably clear, 
holds in solution a little sulphur, possesses a property that renders the 




Church where Nelson is alleged to have been married. 

use of soap unnecessary, and is very mollifying to the skin. It is 
said to be good for rheumatism, gouty complaints, and cutaneous dis- 
orders, and is used with great benefit by a few visitors. 

When we had bathed to our hearts' content, there stole over us a 

delightful sensation of restfulness ; upon me, at least, there came a 
19 



290 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

most delicious exposition of sleep, to which I yielded for a few mo- 
ments. I then set off down the lane to the high-road, where I found a 
carriage waiting to convey the Salmagundian and myself a mile and 
a half farther up the hill, to a little church in which it is incorrectly 
alleged that Admiral Nelson was married to the widow of Dr. Nisbet, 
on March 11, 1787. This lady was the daughter of a Mr. Herbert, 
who was in those days President of Nevis. 

The chapel stands on the left-hand side of the road as you go up 
the mountain, shaded by trees, in the midst of an untidy graveyard. 
The building has by no means a church-like appearance ; indeed, when 
we first caught sight of it we mistook it for a spacious, well-built 
sugar-house, and were disappointed sadly in the aspect of all its sur- 
roundings. 

In the vestry of this sacred building there is to be seen an old 
book containing the parish records, in which there is an entry to the 
effect that the marriage of Admiral Nelson was solemnized on the day 
above mentioned. That is all. Neither of the high contracting par- 
ties signed the memorandum — it cannot be called a contract of mar- 
riage ; and I have no doubt it was written some time after the marriage 
had taken place by some layman who had access to the vestry, for 
there is no evidence that the entry was made by either rector, curate, 
or clerk of the parish, nor by anyone with legal authority to attest 
its validity. Asa matter of fact, the admiral was married very qui- 
etly, not to say privately, in a house some distance from the church. 
Therefore, we who had come so far, expecting to see the autograph 
of the great sailor-man and his ill-fated bride, were much disappointed. 
We were well repaid, however, for our pilgrimage, when we gazed 
upon the magnificent view to be had from the front of the chapel, 
and returned to town satisfied with our visit to the neighborhood in 
which the ceremony is alleged to have taken place. 

Nevis is the birthplace of that American who, unless it be George 
Washington himself, or, in later days, Lincoln, or Grant, rendered a 
more conspicuous service to the United States than any man who 



NEVIS. 291 

has ever devoted his life to the cause and advancement of American 
liberty — a great orator, a talented lawyer, a good soldier, " master of 
every field he entered," the ablest political teacher of his day, the 
man whom John Marshall ranks next to Washington — Alexander 
Hamilton : the deviser and establisher of his country's government, 
the precocious youth who " penned the first draft of the Constitution 
of the United States, who urged and secured its adoption by the origi- 
nal States, living long enough to see the nation to which he gave polit- 
ical stability submitting itself in entire respect and confidence to the 
declarations of the phrases of the remarkable document which, had 
it not been for his study and foreknowledge, would have taxed the 
skill of the wisest of all his contemporaries to formulate." Beyond all 
perad venture, this native of Nevis was one of the greatest men who 
ever first saw the light in the western hemisphere. What man ever 
addressed himself to a grander labor than the invention of a form of 
government for an already great nation ? what man ever brought to 
his self-imposed task greater abilities and more remarkable talents ? 
Is it any wonder, then, that when Americans set foot on the shores 
of Nevis they are inspired with feelings of reverence. 

According to the most reliable authority on the subject, Alexander 
Hamilton was born on the eleventh day of January, 1757, of Scottish 
parentage, on the island of Nevis. His father died while he was 
yet a child ; his mother did not long survive her husband, leaving her 
boy an orphan in indigent circumstances. This statement, however, 
is contradicted in some quarters, for it is asserted that in 1737 the 
father of the great statesman left Nevis to settle in the United 
States, taking with him his son, who already began to give evidence 
of the possession of remarkable talents. The latter record is not fact 
— the truth is, Alexander remained in the West Indies until the year 
1772, when he bade a final adieu to Nevis and sailed for Boston, 
where he arrived in the month of October. Thence he went to New 
York, where in his sixteenth year, as he himself tells us, he entered 
King's (now Columbia) College, having given up his idea, previously 



292 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

conceived, of studying at Princeton, because at the latter institution 
he would have been obliged to measure his advance in learning by 
the progress of his class from year to year, whereas at the former 
he was permitted to go through the course of study as rapidly as 
he could, without regard to classes or his fellow-students. In less 
than five years from the time he arrived in America, Hamilton had 
risen from the command of a company of artillery, which he had re- 
cruited under commission from the State of New York, to be a lieu- 
tenant-colonel on Washington's staff ; being then only in his twentieth 
year. 

There is no need to follow the career of this remarkable man — the 
history of his after-life is too well known to need rehearsal here ; the 
honor and renown which attach to the name of Alexander Hamilton 
are as enduring as the grand mountain of his native island. Most in- 
teresting to me, of all places in the West Indies, was the fair land 
that gave my great compatriot birth. 

A drive around Nevis is a most enjoyable jaunt, not alone because 
the country through which one passes is lovely beyond all description, 
but also because, for two-thirds of the way, the road runs in full view 
of the mighty hills of St. Christopher. The varied panorama thus 
exposed to view is one of the grandest in all the Caribbees. 

We left Nevis at four o'clock, and at sundown on the same day 
the Barracouta was once more at anchor in front of the town of 
Basseterre. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 

Aleck and Anthony, the Crew of the Captain's Gig. — How Aleck "loss his mudder." 
— From Basseterre to Sandy Point. — A Historic Coach. — View from North End 
of St. Kitt's. — Home Again. 

Our cruising amid the Caribbees is at an end. There remains but 
little more for me to say concerning our delightful experiences in the 
"Windward Islands. When the sun went down on the day whereof I am 
writing, our good ship had left far behind her the most northerly of 
the islands of which, in the foregoing pages, I have attempted to give 
a description. 

And now, before we say good-by to them, I desire to pay the fit- 
ting tribute of respectful mention to two brave hearts of oak who, on 
many occasions, and in many ways, earned the good wishes of all the 
passengers on board the Barracouta. Reader, let me introduce to you 
two of my friends — faithful fellows, both of them — kind-hearted, good- 
natured watermen, as handy a couple with a pair of oars or in the man- 
agement of a ship's boat as one may meet in a voyage around the world. 

Aleck and Anthony! citizens of St. Christopher by birth; there- 
fore Englishmen, and, as they both will tell you, loyal subjects of Her 
Majesty Queen Victoria — sailor-men by instinct, able-bodied seamen 
by training and instinctive knowledge of ship-craft. These two colored 
friends of mine ship on board the Barracouta each and every trip of 
that vessel down the islands, and immediately fall into the regular rou- 
tine of their employment as crew of the captain's gig. 

Anthony is inclined to be grave and taciturn — respectfully silent, 



294 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

not morose. In some sort he looks up to Aleck, in whose manner and 
appearance there is a power of dignity, indicative of a character self- 
reliant, scrupulous in the prompt and careful performance of duty. 
Moreover, Aleck has been longer at sea, is the older of the two, sits 
nearest the captain, pulls the stroke-oar, takes his orders direct from 
the commander, and is admitted to receive from high and authorita- 
tive sources much information which he is expected to keep to himself 
and upon which he acts at his discretion. Aleck is captain of the cap- 
tain's gig, and Anthony is his crew — therefore the latter pays his 
superior officer such deference as is due his exalted station. When 
Aleck says, " Push off," push off it is ; when he says, " Make fast," fast 
it is made by Anthony ; and when Anthony takes a turn and belays, 
it is fast bind fast find. Aleck sings, all at the proper time, with a rich 
bass voice, and Anthony joins in the chorus in perfect tune and with 
admirable discretion. On occasion Aleck whistles, keeping time by 
patting on his knees, while Anthony dances industriously, as in duty 
bound. They twain sleep, eat, work together ; they dress alike, think 
and speak alike, are inseparable, night and day. One might read- 
ily believe they had exchanged consciences — they know one another 
"t'rough and t'rough," as they will frequently assure you ; they enjoy 
or suffer all things in common, and each of them, so to speak, is the 
deputy of the other. 

One day I said to Aleck : 

" "What makes you so quiet this morning, Aleck ? " 

The " stroke " shifted uneasily in his seat, smiled faintly, but said 
nothing. Anthony, pulling lustily at the bow-oar, ventured, in behalf 
of his companion : 

"He loss his ole mudder ! " and no more was said, either good or 
bad, at that time. That evening, finding Aleck, for a wonder, alone 
on deck, I asked him, gently : 

" When did your mother die, Aleck ? " 

" She didn' die," he answered, softly ; " she was drown', massa." 

" Long ago ? " 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 295 

" Few years aback, sir." Then, after a long pause, during which 
he leaned over the taffrail, gazing out to sea, Aleck continued : 

" Dat ole mudder was a heabenly woman, massa ! " 

While I was waiting an opportunity to follow up my inquiries, 
Anthony appeared from below, saying, as he joined us : 

" Why don' you come f o' yo' grub, Aleck ? " 

" I was t'inkin'," replied the other ; " I go now," and, turning to 
depart, he inquired lightly, " Yo' lef ' any, Ant'ny ? " 

" Fo' sure I has, Aleck, an' what's mo', yo' know no fellow take yo' 
share an' me 'roun', old maan. You know dat, Aleck, don' yo' ? " 

" I know dat, Ant'ny, t'rough an' t'rough, else I wouldn' 'gage yo'." 

"Ef I s'posed yo' don' know dat, Aleck, jes' so, I wouldn' ship wid 
yo', would I ? " 

" Not as my fren', Ant'ny." 

And Aleck went below to get his share of the grub. 

Anthony, as I ha^e said, was not ordinarily free of speech — in- 
deed, he was a man of very few words ; but when Aleck happened to 
be the subject of conversation he seemed to become inspired to say 
his say in an impressive, epigrammatic fashion, therefore he replied 
promptly to my questions : 

"Anthony, how was Aleck's mother drowned? When was it? 
Where was she ? " 

" In Aleck's boat, massa, ober yaander — crassin' de narr's 'tween 
Neevis an' de p'int o' St. Kitt's. Poor maan, dat what he considerin' 
when yo' ast him why he so quiet dis maarnin'? Seen Aleck dat 
way befo', sir. He was good to dat ole mudder. Yo' ast him, he 
tell yo' — he tol' me many's da time — ' My mudder heabenly woman, 
Ant'ny.' Aleck comin' from Neevis, sir, bringin' his ole mudder — 
squall struck his boat an' capsize her. His mudder so ole she 'most 
dead already befo' dat, an' de col' waater stun her — she sink right dere. 
Aleck swin, sir — yo' eber see dat maan swin, massa ? He swin jus' so 
long's any other maan waalk, an' wid his clo'es aan ; dat aall same to 
him, sir. He lef his boat— de win' carry it away, he neber seen dat 



296 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

p'rogue sence, no mo' — Aleck lef his boat and fish-nets an' aall, ev'ry- 
t'ing, an' take his mudder in liis arms an' swin wid her, so easy : ' Jes' 
like,' he say, ' Ant'ny,' ses he — ' jes' like dat ole wench take me in her 
arms and waalk wid me when I was smaall chile.' So Aleck tol' me, 
hundred times, sir. De sea was powerful an' free, an' de waves splash 
ober his mudder's face. Aleck not able to hoi' her head high-d- 
enough out de waater. He tell me he try very hard. Yo' see, Aleck, 
he de stronges' maan in St. Kitt's, but he can't hoi' his mudder's head 
so high an' swin at de same time. He tell her not be 'feerd, an' she 
promise, an' lie still an' quiet, wid Aleck taalkin' cheer words aall de 
time. Dat was a mighty day in de sea ; Aleck tell me he never see 
de waves rollin' like dat day, and when he look fo' de sho' he can't 
only see de highes' hills. ' Ant'ny,' Aleck say to me when he tell me 
'bout dat time, ' Ant'ny, dem waves was de wildes' I eber seen, an' de 
sho' look too far to get dere.' But he say he kep' swinnin' an' strug- 
glin' till mos' all de life went outer his mouf. Birmby he so tired 
he can't sceercly float, but he kep' sayin' — ' Ef I don' get dere, de ole 
mudder will be drown',' an' she lie so still in his arms he don' mind 
her — but de sea was powerful and wicked. Birmby his feet teched, 
an' he waalked asho', jes' if he been drunk, staggerin' and faallin', 
an' drop his mudder on de san' an' faall down side of her ; den he say 
he aaful sick, de swinnin' an' de saalt waater he swaller make him so. 
Soon he craal where his mudder was, an', marster, de old wench was 
dead — dead, massa ! and Aleck didn't know it, for de po', feeble 
woman die in his arms befo' he reach de Ian'. Den Aleck say he 
cried, sir. He cry now when he tell about it." 

After a pause of several minutes, Anthony continued : " Dat's 
one reason why I like to 'gage wid Aleck — he done dat good 
deed, an' he must be an hones' maan. Dat's what I t'ink fo' sert'n 
true." 

At the end of this recital Anthony became silent, remaining mo- 
tionless, looking seaward, until I could find voice to ask him : 
" How far did Aleck have to swim, Anthony ? " 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 297 

" Aleck say a mile and a half, sir. Some people see him from de 
sho', but dey had no boat to help him when dey saw his boat was 
loss ; dey say it's more dan two miles — but Aleck, he don' make no fuss 
about dat, he jes' say : ' It was far'd enough dat day, Ant'ny. Tank 
God, it is'n' too far to bring dat po' old corpse asho' ; dat dead 
mudder was all I had, boy,' he ses, ' an' I glad I didn' lose dat.' Dat 
what Aleck say, sir." 

When Aleck came on deck again, chewing the last bite of his sup- 
per, there was something very touching in Anthony's manner as he 
greeted his chum, something almost tender in the inquiry : 

" Did yo' get yo' share, Aleck ? " 

And in Aleck's reply : 

" Sure 'nough, I did ; dey don' forget dere's two of us, do dey, 
Ant'ny ? " 

The Barracouta was to sail from Basseterre early in the forenoon, 
and run up the coast of the island, to remain the rest of the day at 
Sandy Point taking sugar ; thence, when her cargo was completed, she 
was to take her departure for New York. A number of her passen- 
gers decided to drive to Sandy Point, and rejoin the ship at that port. 
Accordingly, we set out on our trip about noon, taking the high-road 
that leaves Basseterre from its northern limits and follows the coast- 
line all along the leeward side of St. Christopher. About a mile on 
our journey we came to a little cemetery, within the enclosing wall of 
which, close by the way-side, there stands an obelisk — a monolith — ten 
or twelve feet in height, lately erected in memory of two hundred and 
thirty-three citizens of Basseterre who lost their lives during a fearful 
hurricane which visited the island in 1880. 

This cyclone crossed St. Kitt's from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
Caribbean Sea, bearing with it a water-spout which burst upon the 
summit of Monkey Hill, a sharp-crested, saddle-back mountain, eight 
hundred feet high, which stands about half a mile inland of the town. 
The volume of water discharged by this cloud-burst was almost 
incredible ; it tore the trees from the hill-top and sides, wrenching 



298 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

them out of the earth as if they had been so many weeds ; it washed 
down an amount of gravel and soil, rocks and bowlders, the measure 
of which can only be approximately guessed when one is told that the 
public square in the midst of Basseterre was buried from three to six 
feet deep under rubbish and detritus and the ruins of houses swept 
along by the resistless torrent. No one who has not seen the effect of 
a West Indian hurricane under like conditions can imagine, much less 
describe, the horror of such a visitation. I shall make no attempt to 
depict the terrible results of that night in 1880, for the storm burst 
in all its fury about midnight. Who can imagine the madness of the 
people, the awful wreck and utter ruin worked in a few minutes ? The 
inhabitants who lost their lives were washed out to sea ; in many cases 
their bodies were mangled beyond all recognition. Aleck happened 
to be at home when the catastrophe occurred, and that brave-hearted 
man, of whose courage there can be no manner of doubt, in reply to 
my inquiry as to his experience at the time, with characteristic direct- 
ness and simplicity, said : 

"Don' remember anything, massa, 'bout it, 'cept it jes' happen. 
Didn't seem any use praying, an' I'd been glaad if I'd been dead; 
peared 's if the people what died soones' was de bes' off." 

Midway between Basseterre and Sandy Point we passed through 
the village of Old Road — made quite a royal progress, in fact, being 
greeted by the respectful salutations of its darky populace, or such of 
it as was not then — it being the hour of noonday leisure — at work in 
the cane-pieces. Still farther along the highway we came in sight of 
Brimstone Hill — a great crag that stands apart from, and in front of, 
the main range of the Connarhee Hills, commanding a wide view 
of the coast toward the north and south. Its irregular summits are 
crowned with massive fortifications, greater in extent than the battle- 
ments of Edinburgh Castle. Worn and weather-beaten are the ram- 
parts and curtain-walls ; except in the strongest glare of sunlight, one 
can scarcely distinguish whether they are the work of man or were 
raised by volcanic forces, their vast proportions resembling the es- 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 299 

carpment of a huge natural rock, all blackened and scorched by the 
smoke of subterranean fires. This stronghold was built in the 
days long ago, when the British and French possessed the island in 
common. 

We came into view of Sandy Point early in the afternoon, and 
there lying at anchor before that little seaport was the Barracouta, 
receiving the last of her cargo of sugar. Nowhere in the West In- 
dies is the business of loading and unloading freight managed with 
greater promptness and despatch, and at no place in all our voyaging 
were we received with greater cordiality and good-nature than were 
shown to us by the gentleman who had charge, for aught I could see, 
of all the commerce of the neighborhood. lie lost no time in placing 
his office and his good offices at our disposal, and also introduced us to 
the owner of one of the largest estates in the northern part of St. 
Kitt's. This gentleman, in turn, invited us to drive with him in his 
family carriage, which lie had brought into town that morning early, 
giving orders that it be held in readiness for us whenever we saw fit 
to make use of it. 

And now, reader, let me interest you for a moment in the descrip- 
tion of a coach with a very remarkable history — an English landau, 
built in the style prevailing a quarter of a century ago, spacious in its 
accommodations, albeit somewhat cumbersome in appointments and 
of clumsy design. It would have been more than a load for any but 
its well-fed, slow-going team of English cobs. The conventional Lon- 
don alderman, his wife, and family might have disposed themselves 
within it in comfort, finding abundant room laterally, with no danger 
of being overcrowded or jounced against each other. Properly em- 
blazoned, gilded, draped, and decorated, it would have served the Lord 
Mayor on state occasions. Altogether, it was a fine coach, it was im- 
pressive — I may say, majestic. Its doors were wide ; Mr. Alderman 
would have had no difficulty in entering in thereat, notwithstanding 
all the complications which arise from attending a Lord Mayor's din- 
ner, and Mrs. Alderman could readily have been squeezed into it, 



300 DOWN THE ISLANDS. 

even bad she been arrayed in a full panoply of hoops, such as ladies 
wore in the. days when the coach was new. When the Alabama was 
scouring the seas, this coach was built in England for the still unterri- 
fied President of the Southern Confederacy. I can well imagine it to 
have cost in the neighborhood of five or six hundred thousand dol- 
lars in Confederate paper-money ; that is to say, about seven or eight 
hundred pounds sterling, to put the figures in more concrete and 
tangible form. When it received its last coat of varnish, and was 
ready for service, it started out on its travels, having for its objec- 
tive point the coach-house of Mr. Jefferson Davis, then installed in 
office at Richmond, Va. It was attempted, so the story of its ad- 
ventures goes, to run it through the blockade at Charleston, or some 
other port then under the supervision of Uncle Sam's blockading squad- 
ron. Failing to enter its desired haven, the vehicle was carried to 
Nassau in the Bahama Islands, whence an attempt was made to set 
it ashore in some harbor not named to me by the chronicler of its 
wanderings ; again headed off, it finally landed at St. Thomas, where 
it remained until the end of the war between the States. At St. 
Thomas it was sold at auction for the account and at the risk of whom 
it might concern, and in this way directly or, in time, indirectly came 
into the possession of the gentleman to whose courtesy we owed the 
pleasure of a ride in it, what time I visited St. Kitt's, twenty years 
and more after the close of the late unpleasantness in North America. 

We proceeded in this historic conveyance for several miles along 
the road, gradually trending toward the northeast and east, until we 
came to the most northerly point of St. Kitt's. The outline of the 
shore at that place is almost semicircular, extending out to sea in a 
regular, graceful curve, to the edge of a wall of rocks which in some 
places rises a hundred feet or more above tide-level. 

Seven or eight miles away, St. Eustatius stands in the foreground 
of the mighty picture, appearing to the west of Statia ; beyond the 
latter Saba rises to view, while St. Bartholomew is to be plainly seen, 
as is also St. Martin. 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 301 

All of these islands I have fully described in the opening chapters 
of this book, and therefore have no need to say more of them here and 
now, except to mention that, of all views looking seaward, the panorama 
spread out before us as we stood on the northern verge of St. Christo- 
pher is grander and more inspiring than any other of like kind we 
beheld in the Caribbees. It is a view no one visiting St. Christopher 
should fail to behold, at no matter what trouble or expenditure of 
time. In the enjoyment of it the minutes sped away unnoticed ; at 
length, however, we were compelled to hasten back to Sandy Point, 
whence, after bidding a farewell to our kind entertainers and friends, 
we set sail in the Barracouta on our homeward voyage to Kew York. 

So we left the islands of unending summer and perpetual har- 
vest, where fruits ripen and flowers are blooming every month of the 
twelve — the islands of palms and spice-trees, of orange-groves and 
cane-piece — and, all in good time, in health and happiness, came to the 
country of early winter and belated spring, of pine and fir-tree, of 
frost and snow-drift, storm and bitter cold — for so we left it when we 
sailed away in early April ; but, coming home again, one fair May-day, 
we knew it for the land of snow-drop and of dog-wood, of bobolink 
and oriole. 

And now, reader, before I take my leave of you, wishing you all 
the good that you yourself can wish, bear me witness that I dedicate 
this first book of mine to the dear lady who, with loving patience, 
taught me my alphabet, and showed me how to hold a pen — My 
Mothee. 



Dr. FIELD'S TRAVELS 

By Rev. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D. 



From the Lakes of Killarney 

to the Golden Horn, . . $2.00 
From Egypt to Japan, . 2.00 

On the Desert, . . . 2.00 



Among the Holy Hills. With 

a map, . . . $1.50 

The Greek Islands, and Turkey 
after the War. With illustra- 
tions and maps, . . . 1.50 



The Set, Five Volumes, CrownSvo, in a Box, $9.00. 

I.-FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY TO THE. 
GOLDEN HORN. 

From THE LONDON TIMES. 
" As we all know, it is not necessary for a man to discover a new country in order to write an 
interesting book of travel. He may traverse the most beaten track in Europe, and yet if he can 
describe what he has seen with freshness and originality, he will succeed in engaging our atten- 
tion. We do not go far with Dr. Field before finding out that he is a traveller of this sort." 

II.-FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN. 

From Prof. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., LL.D. 
"In this second volume, Dr. Field, I think, has surpassed himself in the first, and this is 
saying a good deal. In both volumes the editorial instinct and habit are conspicuous. Dr. Prime 
has said that an editor should have six senses, the sixth being, a "sense of the interesting: " 
Dr. Field has this to perfection. ..." * 



III.-ON THE DESERT. 

WITS A. BRIEF REVIEW OF RECENT EVENTS IN EGYPT. 

An account of ajourney in the track of the Israelites along the Red Sea, among the peaks of 
Sinai, through the Desert of the Wandering, and up to the Promised Land. 

From the NEW YORK HERALD. 
' ' There is not an uninteresting chapter in the book. It is entertaining throughout. It deDicts 
men and countries in a picturesque and thoughtful manner, and is likely to meet with as much 
favor as the author's former capital books of travel." 



IV.-AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 

A description of the sacred localities of Palestine by a veteran traveller. The interest of the 
Holy Land above all others, is that here was spent the most wonderful life that ever was lived on 
the earth ; and the purpose of the journey, to which this book is indebted, is to trace that life 
from its beginning among its native hills and to follow closely in the footsteps of our Lord not 
merely m the streets of Jerusalem, but through Samaria and Galilee, along the lake shore and on 
tne mountain side, 

V.-THE GREEK ISLANDS AND TURKEY AFTER 
THE WAR. 

From a Letter from Dr. HOWARD CROSBY. 

"It fully sustains the high reputation which the author has won from his preceding books of 
ZJt\ r . bel > Ve th ^- the Ver ^ 1 of , P° sterit y will put Dr. Field's name first in the list of Ameri- 
can travel writers. His graceful style, his thorough mastery of language, his graphic picturing 
i^truftiv? r 1adi n ng.^ ^ referenCes t0 his sound conclusions, make 'mosf fa^cina^ngaTd 

" It is the best of all works on the Island of Greece, and on Turkey and Asia Minor." 

"If there were any best among Dr. Field's works of travel, weTh/ulTf^lh^X'tas'this." 

— The Critic. 



JOHN BULL AND HIS ISLAND. 

One Volume, 12mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1 .00. 

This -witty and incisive book on England, by an anonymous French author, is the sensa* 
Hon of the moment in Paris, London, and America. The British press and public have been 
compelled to laugh over the admirable cleverness of the study, even while they protested ; 
and the fairer critics have recognized the striking truth and merit of the more serious criti- 
cism which forms no insignificant t>art of it. 



THE RUSSIANS AT THE GATES OF HERAT. 

By CHARLES MARVIN, 

Principal authority of the English press on the Central Asia Dispute. 

Illustrated with portraits and maps. Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1 .00. 



Army Life in Russia. 

B> F. V. GREENE, 

Lieutenant of Engineers, United States Army. 

Late Millitary Attache to the U. S. Legation in St. Petersburg, and author of 
"The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78." 



One Volume, 12m o. Xew Edition, $1.25. 

"The sketches are excellently well done, graphic, evidently not exaggerated, and very read- 
able. It is a book that will be read with pleasure, and one that contains a great deal of infor- 
mation." — Hartford Courant. 

"This volume is in every way an admirable picture of army life in Russia. It is clear, con- 
cise, discriminating, and often very picturesque. The author, besides possessing an excellent 
style, is extremely modest, and there are very few books of travel in which the first person is 
kept so absolutely in the background." — International Review. 



THE SNAKE DANCE 

OF THE 

MOQUI S OF AR IZONA. 

Being a Narrative of a Journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the villages of the Moqui 

Indians of Arizona, with a Description of the Manners and Customs of this Peculiar People. 

By John G. Bourke, Captain Third U. S. Cavalry. One volume, crown 8vo, with more 

than thirty plates, many of them beautifully colored. $5.00. 

While Captain Bourke's narrative presents an extraordinarily interesting narration of adven- 
ture, its importance should be emphasized as an original contribution to the literature bearing 
upon the manners, customs, and religions of a peculiar and historic people, who have lived in 
Mexico and Arizona since the Spaniards first entered this portion of the country, in the middle 
of the sixteenth century. Captain Bourke was the first white man to witness many of the curious 
and picturesque customs of the Moqui Indians, particularly the famous Snake Dance. 

"The work forms a valuable contribution to the study of native American ethnology, while 
its vivid descriptions of weird scenes, stirring incidents of travel, and characteristic anecdotes, 
culminating with the accounts of the tablet and snake dances, generally written in a plain un- 
affected style, make it very agreeable reading." — The London Academy. 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

AN APACHE CAMPAIGN 

IN THE SIERRA MADRE. 
One Volume, 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00, 



" 1 think Mr. QualtrougVs Book very valuable to every young officer , to yachtsmen, and 
to all who follow the sea. The material is carefully prepared, well arranged, and very useful 
to all interested in maritime matters.'''' — C. R. P. Rodgers, Rear-Admiral. 



THE SAILOR'S HANDY BOOK 



YACHTSMAN'S MANUAL. 

By E. F. QUALTROUGH, Master U. S. Navy. 
With Colored Plates, and many Illustrations. I vol., square 16mo, 620 pages. Blue roan, red edges. 

PRICE, *3.50. 

The American naval service and merchant marine, and that very large class of Americans 
who are interested in yachting or in some form of seamanship, have hitherto lacked one con- 
venience — almost a necessity, indeed. There has been no one book which, not aiming to replace 
abstruse scientific and theoretical treatises on seamanship, should bring together in a convenient 
form the really practical knowledge necessary for a sailor ; which should give him, immediately 
at hand, a compendium of those thousand details prompt and thorough acquaintance with which 
makes the difference between the good and the incompetent seaman. 

This want Lieutenant Qualtrough, of the United States Navy, has now filled by a book 
which is the most exhaustive and practical that could be planned. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

THE BOAT SAILER'S MANUAL 

A complete treatise on the management of sailing boats of all kinds, and under all conditions 
of weather, containing also concise descriptions of the various rigs in general use, at home and 
abroad, directions for handling, sailing canoes, and " The Rudiments of Cutter and Sloop Sailing." 

1 vol.. square 16mo. Blue roan, orange edges. With numerous plates 
and illustrations . Price, $2.00, net. 



THE AMERICA'S CUP. 

HOW IT WAS WON BY THE YACHT AMERICA IN 1851, AND 
HOW IT HAS BEEN SINCE DEFENDED. 

By Capt. ROLAND F. COFFIN, 

Author of "Sailors' Yarns," "Archibald the Cat," "How Old Wiggins Wore Ship," Etc., Etc. 

1 vol., 12mo. With Illustrations. Paper, 50c. Cloth, $1.00. 

A history of all the races since 1851 for the possession of the trophy, the emblem of the 
yachting supremacy of the world — commonly called the Queen's Cup — with an account of the 
English yachts Genesta and Galatea, entered for the races to be sailed in September, 1885, for 
the possession of this most coveted prize. Also descriptions of the yachts Priscilla and Puritan. 
There are twelve full-page illustrations from drawings by Frederick S. Cozzens, an engraving of 
the cup, and a reproduction of John Leech's cartoon published in London Punch after the 
remarkable victory of the America in 1851. 



THE MOST ATTRACTIVE WORK OK YACHTING EVEIt ISSUED. 

AMERICAN YACHTS. 

Plates by FREDERICK S. COZZENS. Text by J. D. J. KELLEY, Lieut. U. S. N. 
LIST OF SUBJECTS: 



I. The Early Racers. 
II. Sandy Hook to the Needles — 1866. 

III. An Old Rendezvous — New London. 

IV. Off Brenton's Reef. 

V. Rounding the Light Ship. 
VI. The Finish off Staten Island— 1870. 
VII. In the Narrows— A Black Squall. 
VIII. Running Out— New Bedford. 

IX. Off Soundings — A Smoky Sou'wester. 
X. Robbins Reef — Sunset. 
XI. Around the Cape — Marblehead. 
XII. Over the Cape May Course — 1873. 

XIII. By Sou'west Spit. 

XIV. Moonlight on Nantucket Shoals. 



XV. Lying-To off George's Banks. 
XVI. A Stern Chase and a Long One — 
1876. 
XVII. A Breezy Day Outside. 
XVIII. Crossing the Line — New York Bay. 
XIX. Minot's Ledge Light. 
XX. For the America's Cup— 1881 — The 

Start. 
XXI. A Misty Morning— Drifting. 
XXII. In Down East Waters— Boston Bay. 

XXIII. Before the Wind— Newport, 1883. 

XXIV. Under the Palisades. 
XXV. Ice Boating on the Hudson. 

XXVI. Signal Chart. 



*** Sold exclusively by subscription. Edition limited. No order taken except for tht 
complete work. 



[From the CINCINNATI COMMERCIAL.] 
" Scribner's ' Campaigns of the Civil War'' are probably the ablest and most striding 
account of the late war that has yet been written. Choosing the flower of military authors, 
the publishers have assigned to each the task of writing the history of the events he knew 
most about. Thus, both accuracy and a life-like freshness have been secured.'' 



The Campaigns of the Civil War. 

13 VOLUMES, CLOTH. WITH MAPS AND PLANS. 
Price, per volume, $1.00; per Set, $12. 50. 

A series of volumes, contributed by a number of leading actors in and 
students of the great conflict of i86i-'65, with a view to bringing together, 
for the first time, a full and authoritative military history of the suppression 
of the Rebellion. 

The volumes are duodecimos of about 250 pages each, illustrated by 
maps and plans prepared under the direction of the authors. 

I. — The Outbreak of Rebellion. By John G. Nicolay. 

A preliminary volume, describing the opening of the war, and covering the period from the 
election of Lincoln to the end of the first battle of Bull Run. 
II.— Froni Fort Henry to Corinth. By the Hon. M. F. Force. 

The narrative of events in the West from the Summer of 1861 to May, 1862 ; covering the 
capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, etc., etc. 
III. — The Peninsula. By Alexander S. Webb, LL.D. 

The history of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, from his appointment to the end of the 
Seven Days' Fight. 
IV The Army under Pope. By John C. Roies. 

From the appointment of Pope to command the Army of Virginia, to the appointment of 
McClellan to the general command in September, 1862. 
V. — The Antietam and Fredericksburg. By Gen. Francis Winthrop Palfrey. 

From the appointment of McClellan to the general command, September, 1862, to the end 
of the battle of Fredericksburg. 
VI. — Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. By Gen. Abner Doubleday. 

From the appointment of Hooker, through the campaigns of Chancellorsville and Gettys- 
burg, to the retreat of Lee after the latter battle. 
ATI.— The Army of the Cumberland. By Gen. Henry M. Cist. 

From the formation of the Army of the Cumberland to the end of the battles at Chatta- 
nooga, November, 1863. 
VIII. — The Mississippi. By Lieut. Francis Vinton Greene. 

An account of the operations— especially at Vicksburgand Port Hudson — by which the Miss- 
issippi River and its shores were restored to the control of the Union. 
IX.— Atlanta. By the Hon. Jacob D. Cox. 

From Sherman's first advance into Georgia in May, 1S64, to the beginning of the March to 
the Sea. 
X. — The March to the Sea — Franklin and Nashville. By the Hon. Jacob D. Cox. 

From the beginning of the March to the Sea to the surrender of Johnston— including also 
the operations of Thomas in Tennessee. 
XI.— The Shenandoah Valley in 1864. The Campaign of Sheridan. By George 

E. Pond. 
XII.— The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65. The Army of the Potomac and the 

Army of the James. By Andrew A. Humphreys. 
XIII Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States. By Frederick Phisterer. 

This Record includes the figures of the quotas and men actually furnished by all States; a 
list of all organizations mustered into the U. S. service ; the strength of the army at various 
periods ; its organization in armies, corps, etc.; the divisions of the country into departments, 
etc.; chronological list of all engagements, with the losses in each ; tabulated statements of all 
losses in the war, with the causes of death, etc.; full lists of all general officers, and an immense 
amount of other valuable statistical matter relating to the War. 



THE NAVY IN THE CIVIL WAR. 

In three volumes, 12mo, uniform with " The Campaigns of the Civil War. 
With Maps and Plans. 
Price, per volume, . . . $1.00. 
I. — The Blockade and the Cruisers. By Professor J. Russell Soley, U. S. Navy. 
II. — The Atlantic Coast. — By Rear-Admiral Daniel Ammen, U. S. Navy. 
III. — The Gulf and Inland Waters. By Commander A. T. Mahan, U. S. Navy. 



SCRIBNER'S GUIDE-BOOKS. 



The Index Guide 

New Edition. 1887. Leather Binding. 

TO TRAVEL AND ART-STUDY IN EUROPE. 

By LAFAYETTE C. LOOMIS, A.M. 

With Plans and Catalogues of the Chief Art Galleries, Maps, 

Tables of Routes, and 160 Illustrations. 

One Volume, 1 6mo, 600 Pages, $3.50. 



In condensing into one volume what Baedeker could hardly comprise in nine, and 
Murray in fifteen. Professor Loomis has accomplished a herculean labor, which his 
countrymen should not be slow to recognize. With characteristic good sense, he has 
given only brief reference to routes, hotels, and cost, devoting his space to history, 
mythology, and art. He has met the work with a discrimination and intelligence 
which can hardly be too highly praised. 

"Only words of praise can be spoken of this work." 
"The best and completest." 

" By all odds the best Guide I have ever seen." 
"And something better than a guide-book." 
"Almost a triumph of genius in bookmaking." 

PART I. — Scenery, Art, History, Legends, and Myths, including descriptions of places, 
buildings, monuments, works of art, and the historical facts, legends, and myths 
connected with these. 

Part II. — Plans and Catalogues of the Art Galleries of Europe. 

Part III. — Maps, Tables, and Directions for all leading Routes of Travel. 

THE MEXICAN GUIDE. 

NEW EDITION FOM 1887. 

By THOMAS A. JANVIER. 

One Volume, 16mo. With large folded maps. Leather, net, $2.50. 

The Mexican Guide has received the official endorsement of the Mexican Government (see 
extract from the Diario Oficial below), the warm commendation of the newspaper press of 
Mexico and the United States, the substantial approval of the travelling public. It is the only- 
practical, accurate guide-book to Mexico. 

" The Mexican Guide, written in English and destined for the use of travellers who visit 
Mexico, is a book that merits especial commendation because of the fullness and exactness of 
the facts which it presents, and the judgment and care shown in its preparation. The book is 
acccompanied by a map of the City of Mexico, and one of its environs, both exact and useful. 
We recommend the purchase of this guide." 

AN IDYL OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS. 

BERMUDA. 

By JULIA C. R. DORR. 

With Map. One Volume, 12mo, $1.25, 

" A delicious book in its bright descriptions of a sunny land, where winter snow and frost 
are never known. There is very little of hard, dry description in the volume, but there is much 
of accurate information deftly conveyed in a bright, off-hand manner, and the whole work is so 
permeated by a sympathetic feeling and comprehension for that which is most fascinating in Ber- 
mudian life, that we get a vivid impression of naturalness from the reading of its pages." 

— Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 



A NOTEWORTHY BOOK. 



Our Arctic Province. 

ALASKA AND THE SEAL ISLANDS. 

By HENRY W. ELLIOTT. 

Illustrated by Drawings from Nature, by the Author, and Maps. 



One Volume, 8vo, $4.50. 



Mr. Elliott has for many years been connected with the Smithsonian 
Institution at Washington. A scientist and a naturalist, his book on 
Alaska, besides being of the utmost interest to the general reader, is of 
great value and importance as a contribution to scientific research. The 
author has spent six or seven years in studying Alaska and its people, 
travelling from the most southerly point of the province to the most 
northerly, along the coast, and among the islands extending 300 miles to 
the west. His treatment of the seal interests is particularly full, and of 
especial moment in view of the fact that the contract between the United 
States and the Alaska Seal Company, which supplies the world with seal- 
skins, will soon lapse, and the subject is certain to come up prominently in 
Government affairs. The natives and the Alaskan life Mr. Elliott writes 
of as one who knows his subject intimately. The illustrations, of which 
there are about a hundred, are engraved from the author's original draw- 
ings and water-color paintings. 



There has scarcely been a book published on Arctic travel so vivid 
Philadelphia and picturesque in treatment, and so clear and definite in the infor- 
Record. mation which it furnishes, as this work by Mr. Elliott. . . . It is 

an effective and really wonderful record of travel and exploration. 

Other books may still be written about Alaska, but it is not easy to 
N. Y. jfournal understand how any of them can exceed this one in interest, or in 
of Commerce. any way shake its authority as an accurate guide to "Our Arctic 
Province." 

A book that is a work ; not a sportsman's pastime, but a scientist's 
Boston Literary treatise ; not a history, not a mere description, not a narrative of ad- 
World. venture ; but a carefully studied, thoroughly assimilated, intelligently 

written, attractively illustrated exposition of Alaska. 

Nothing so complete and satisfactory has ever before appeared in 

Chicago print in this country as this absorbingly interesting and minutely 

Herald. accurate account of the great Alaskan Seal Islands, and the book must 

now be regarded as the standard authority on " Our Arctic Province." 

JVew York ^" ew D0 °^ s on Alaska contain so much that has real value and posi- 

Times t ' ve mterest as tn ' s - It is an accumulation of very vital facts about 

that country set forth in an exact and yet attractive manner. 

A standard, comprehensive work, whose scientific accuracy is be- 

Boston yond question, and whose graphic descriptions and vital interpreta- 

Traveller tions of the resources of Alaska hold the reader with something of the 

charm of a romance. . . . The book is certainly one of the most 

valuable contributions to contemporary literature. 



Duo Years in n>e Judglg. 

The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, 
Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and Borneo. 

By WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, 

Chief Taxidermist U. S. National Museum. 



One vol,, 8vo, pp. xxii. 512, two folding maps and 51 illustrations. Price, 



THE EXPEDITION AND ITS OBJECT. 

THE author relates the experiences of a hunter and naturalist in India, 
Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and Borneo ; and certainly no richer 
hunting-ground could be found anywhere else in the world. Mr. 
Hornaday is chief taxidermist in the United States National Museum. 
He was formerly connected with Professor Ward's Natural Science 
Museum of Rochester, N. Y., and his expedition to the East was in the 
interests of that establishment. While his book is in some respects like 
such works as those which Du Chaillu and Sir Samuel W. Baker have 
written to delight and interest a multitude of readers, he has imparted a 
vast amount of information, a large part of which is new and of the great- 
est moment to the naturalist. 

Mr. Hornaday started from New York in 1876. From England he 
went finally south to India, arriving at Bombay ; he went across country 
to Benares; from here he made an expedition to the north to Cawnpore 
and Agra. From Benares he worked his way to Calcutta, journeyed down 
the Bay of Bengal to Madras ; southward again, he made a complete cir- 
cuit of Ceylon, than to the Malay Peninsula, and finally to Borneo, where 
his adventures with the orangutan were met, ending his two years of fruit- 
ful and entirely successful search. The illustrations are many, and most 
of them are taken from Mr. Hornaday's own sketches. Though it may 
seem to be stating much, it certainly may be truly said that a more inter- 
esting book of travel and adventures was never published. 



"Decidedly the most interesting and instructive book of travel and adventure in 
the East Indies it has ever been our good fortune to read." — Baltimore News. 

" An entertaining volume. . . . The author has proved his ability to write a 
good book of travel." — Morning Post (London). 

" To the naturalist, Mr. Hornaday's book cannot but be as deeply interesting as 
to the sportsman and traveller. ... It deserved to be distinguished from among 
the mass of books of sporting adventure." — Melbourne Argus. 

" One of the most entertaining and instructive books of its kind that has been 
published." — San Francisco Post. 



AN AMERICAN FOUR-IN-HAND IN BRITAIN. 

By ANDREW CARNEGIE. 

1 Vol., small quarto, $3.00. Cheap Edition, yellow paper cover, 25 cents. 



The book gives a lively account of the author's famous drive with a party of friends on a coach 
through England and Scotland. The trip was originally suggested by Mr. Black's novel, "The 
Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," and extended from Brighton to Inverness, a distance of more 
than eight hundred miles, which was accomplished in about seven weeks. Mr. Carnegie is an enter- 
taining and agreeable writer, and this record of his novel journey makes a most delightful and read- 
able book. 

Uniform with the small quarto edition of AN AMERICAN FOUR-IN-HAND IN BRITAIN. 



ROUND THE WORLD 

By ANDREW CARNEGIE. 

1 Vol., small quarto, S>2.50. 



Mr. Carnegie's J'our-in-lland in Britain was one of the brightest and most popular books of 
the season. His new volume, as it has a wider scope, has also a more comprehensive interest and 
value. Buoyant, keen, joyous, and practical, the author sets down without reserve or affectation, just 
the impressions that made themselves most vividly felt at the moment, and the rapid flow of the 
narrative fairly enchains the reader's attention. 

Sailing from San Francisco to Japan on his course round the world, the largei part of Mr. Car- 
negie's book is taken up with the description of Eastern lands, and it forms a real addition to the 
literature of travel. 



TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY; 

OR, FIFTY YEARS' MARCH OF THE REPUBLIC. 
By ANDREW CARNEGIE. 



1 Vol., 8vo. Price, .*2.00. 



This work will open the eyes of the masses to the wonderful advancement — physical, moral, po- 
litical, and intellectual — of the United States during the last half century, an advancement either little 
understood or willfully misrepresented in Europe. Though various causes have contributed to this 
unexampled rate of progress, the principal one, in Mr. Carnegie's opinion, is the fundamental fact of 
the equality of the citizen in the Republic. 



CHRONICLE OF THE COACH 

CHARING CROSS TO ILFRACOMBE. 
By JOHN DENISON CHAMPLIN, Jr. 

Illustrated by Edward E. Cliicliester. 1 vol., 12mo. New Edition, $1.35. 



"The book takes us into the old and out-of-the-way places of which we have heard less, and in 
which we are more interested because of their old-time and eventful histories, their quaint buildings, 
customs, and people, their charming scenery and their poetic legends. The company is merry, wise, 
and observant ; harmless and witty jest and repartee abound, and all these find in Mr. Champlin a 
lively and intelligent chronicler." — Chicago Interior. 



" The Prince of Story-Tellers" — London Times. 

THE WORKS OF JULES VERNE. 

THE COMPLETE AND AUTHORIZED EDITIONS. 

The following works of M. JULES VERNE are published by Messrs. Charles 
Scribner's Sons, by arrangement with Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., of London, in 
accordance with the right ceded to them by MM. Hetzel & Co., the publishers of M. 
Verne's works in the original French edition. These volumes contain all the illustrations 
of the French edition, and are the only complete and authorized books of M. Jules 
Verne published in this country. 

In a New and Uniform Edition. 9 vols., Svo. With over 750 full-page 
Illustrations. Price, per set in a box, $17.50. 

Michael Strogoff ; or, the Courier of A Journey to the Center of the 



the Czar $2.00 

A Floating City and the Blockade 

Runners 2-00 

Hf.ctor Servadac 200 

Dick Sands 2.00 



Earth $2.00 

From the Earth to the Moon. . . 2.00 
The Steam House. 2 vols, in one. 2.00 
The Giant Raft. 2 vols, in one. . 2.00 
The Mysterious Island. 3 vols, in one. 2.50 



JULES VERNE'S GREA TEST WORK. 

THE EXPLORATION OF THE WORLD. 

Three volumes, Svo, extra cloth, with 100 full-page engravings in each. Price, per 
volume, .... ....... $2.50 

The work includes three divisions, each in one volume complete in itself. 

I. Famous Travels and Travellers. 

II. The Great Navigators. 

III. The Explorers of the Nineteenth Century. 

Each volume in the series is very fully illustrated with full-page engravings by 
French artists of note ; and the volume of " FAMOUS TRAVELS " is made still more 
interesting by many fac-similes from the original prints in old voyages, atlases, etc. 

" Even if truth were not stranger than fiction, to the healthful mind it ought to be far more 
fascinating. Such works as this are not only entertaining and informing, but their whole atmos- 
phere is bracing. They are as much better than sentimental heart histories or imaginary per- 
sonal experiences as a day in the open air is better than a day in a close and crowded apartment." 
—N. Y. Observer. 



BAYARD TAYLOR'S LIBRARY OF TRAVEL. 

Six Volumes, 12mo. Each with many Illustrations. 

SOLD SEPARATELY. PER VOLUME, $1.25. 

A NEW EDITION, IN ATTRACTIVE BINDING, OF THIS ENTERTAINING SERIES IS NOW ISSUED. 

Each volume is complete in itself, and contains, first, a brief preliminary sketch of 
the country to which it is devoted ; next, such an outline of previous explorations as 
may be necessary to explain what has been achieved by later ones ; and finally, a con- 
densation of one or more of the most important narratives of recent travel, accom- 
panied with illustrations of the scenery, architecture, and life of the races, drawn only 
from the most authentic sources. 
Japan in our Day. Central Asia. 

Travels in Arabia. The Lake Region of Central Africa. 

Travels in South Africa. Siam, the Land of the White Elephant, 

Complete Sets, 6 Volumes (in a box), $6.00. 




"The most remarkable book ever produced upon the subject 
of Arctic explorations."— JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, 



Three Years of Arctic Service. 

AN ACCOUNT OP THE 

LADY FRANKLIN BAY EXPEDITION OF 1881-84, 

AND THE ATTAINMENT OF THE 

FARTHEST NORTH. 

The first full and authorized account of the most important and 
successful Arctic Exploration ever made. 

MAGNIFICENTLY ILLUSTRATED 

WITH 

OVER ISO ENGRAVINGS, MAPS, AND CHARTS. 



By Lieutenant A. W. GREELY, U.S.A. 
Commanding the Expedition. 



This book contains Lieutenant Greely's story of an expedition which reached the most northerly 
point ever attained: and of an experience tliat stands alone in Arctic annals. Apart from the narrative 
of extraordinary suffering and final rescue which appears here, the fact that no one else ever passed 
the same length of time so far within the Arctic circle gives to the account the value and interest ol 
observations absolutely new. Lieutenant Greely's training, attainments, and above all the long study 
of Arctic matters and the Polar question which first led him to seek this service, all qualified him to 
make and to record these observations: and his book will be found to give his experience with a simple 
directness that makes the story the more absorbing, and with no detention of the reader over useless 
comment. 

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. 

TTJiTO VOLUMES. Ij-A-IRGKE Q,TT7!lETO. 

PRICES AND STYLES OF BINDING. 

Extra Cloth, per volume, . . . $5 00 I Half Morocco, Gilt, per volume, . . $8 00 

Sheep, Marbled Edges, per volume, . 6 00 I Full Morocco, Gilt, per volume, . . 10 00 

SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION THROUGH AUTHORIZED AGENTS. 

Delivered to any part of the United States free of charge. 



THE RESCUE OF GREELY. 



— BY- 



Commander W. S. SCHLEY, U. S. N., and Prof. J. RUSSELL SO LEY, U. S. N. 

WITH MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1 Vol., 8vo, New Edition, $2.00. 



Now that the story of the relief of Greely and his party is fully told, it turns out to be one of the 
most stirring and absorbing chapters in Arctic annals. The two disastrous attempts made in previous 
years, to the disappointment of the whole people, were enough to show that the rescue was not a 
matter of simply sailing up to Cape Sabine and back; there was some reason besides "luck" why 
two expeditions ended in disaster, and why the Navy finally accomplished what had been twice tried 
by others. 

The simplicity and modesty of Captain Schley's and Mr. Soley's narrative do not hide from any 
reader what this reason really was. 



% 






■■■■■■■ 



HBSRRn 



■1 



HI 



iiS.™,L , f congress 



001581 4 773 7 



MM 



■1 i 



Hl , ' |i 'i : 'fe ■■■ 
■■H 




Hi 









V:..." 












ESSSfira 



mm 

RnHHuHr 



■ ^t"f 



•t HH Ml 



i ■ ■■ 









'■;:>:■' ■?.«!! 



■ 



Bawl ■■ 

■ 



■■ ■!■■■ 



• . -ilff^JHw ■■■ I . M HI 



HI 



